Question for a Christian (Hicks)

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 8:51 am

A torturer kidnaps five men. To determine their fate, he draws straws on their behalf. The torturer takes the first man aside, and tells him that because his straw was the longest that he will leave unscathed with a small fortune in material wealth. Then, the torturer flays the second, blinds the third, cripples the fourth, and castrates the fifth. "Thank you," the first man says earnestly, standing amongst his mutilated companions, "you have both my gratitude and respect."

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 3:12 pm

Hicks wrote: The short version is that the triune creator and omnipotent master of all time and space, as revealed by his word, which is truth made manifest, is not all-loving.

You definitely seem to pick the least popular way to resolve the problem of evil, but at least you're consistent. Few people are comfortable rejecting omnibenevolence. Usually, the reject omnipotence (free will, you have to know dark to know light, or best of all possible worlds), or they engage in a bunch of mental gymnastics to insist that omnipotence and omnibenevolence are compatible.

That being said, based on what you said in your post: why do heaven and hell exist in this paradigm? I guess the obvious answer is "for God's glory", but can you further explain that?

DSMatticus wrote:A torturer kidnaps five men. To determine their fate, he draws straws on their behalf. The torturer takes the first man aside, and tells him that because his straw was the longest that he will leave unscathed with a small fortune in material wealth. Then, the torturer flays the second, blinds the third, cripples the fourth, and castrates the fifth. "Thank you," the first man says earnestly, standing amongst his mutilated companions, "you have both my gratitude and respect."

Yeah, I've never found Calvinism to be very comforting. It strikes me as a "good" way to reconcile what Romans 9 says and to maintain omnipotence, but you end up with Cthulhu wearing a beard.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 3:24 pm

Yeah, I must admit that strikes me as pretty crazy.

It should be noted that in many strains of Christianity, there's no particular contradiction because they don't have a utilitarian ethical system and happiness for everyone is not neccessarily defined as good. Another answer is that an omniscient being knows what is good for us better than we do, and sends trials and suffering so people can grow by overcoming them. Perfect happiness for everyone is something he could do, but it wouldn't actually be good for us. Remember that Christianity is an afterlife religion, so it's okay if people die because they go to the afterlife.

Calvinism seems weird to me because it doesn't seem to have a particular reason for Earth to exist instead of just skipping to the end. In other forms, what people do on Earth determines what afterlife they get.

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 3:56 pm

name_here wrote:Yeah, I must admit that strikes me as pretty crazy.

It should be noted that in many strains of Christianity, there's no particular contradiction because they don't have a utilitarian ethical system and happiness for everyone is not neccessarily defined as good. Another answer is that an omniscient being knows what is good for us better than we do, and sends trials and suffering so people can grow by overcoming them. Perfect happiness for everyone is something he could do, but it wouldn't actually be good for us. Remember that Christianity is an afterlife religion, so it's okay if people die because they go to the afterlife.

Calvinism seems weird to me because it doesn't seem to have a particular reason for Earth to exist instead of just skipping to the end. In other forms, what people do on Earth determines what afterlife they get.

That reminds me of a friend of mine who used an analogy of not giving your dog certain foods because it'll make them sick. They reeally want that chocolate and can't understand why you're not letting them have this one thing when you let them have so many other things. They can't comprehend that the chocolate is poison but you, as a being of higher rational thought, know it will kill your pet.

I'm not entirely on board with that analogy but I have to admit if I were to go omnibenevolent again the "picture so big it is outside the scope of your limited processing power" would probably be the way I do it.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:02 pm

If I said anything else, I would have been immidieatly and justifiably ripped apart. I still may be; none of you reading this are idiots, and we all have access to the same general resouces of information.

Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." It is internally consistent to fear God. To me, if I'm gonna take "sovereign creator and master of all time and space" seriously and to its logical conclusion, combined with what has been revealed to me by God through science of the nature, scope, uncertainty, and acknowledged and apparent imperfect knowledge of his entire creation (or at least the fraction of that which is the observable universe), that is... well Psalm 19:1 says it best, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." That fear and awe put it into perspective, that when God appears, through earthquake, wind, and fire, he chooses to speak in a still, small voice. I am even more amazed he bothered at all.

The analogy of five men is missing a step: All five men suffer for ~70 years and die, and most of them all hope to have loved ones who suffer in mourning at their passing. Then 4 of the 5 are removed from the 5th, which leads to a torture I cannot describe, that I do not understand, and that never ends.

Being a Christian isn't about the absence of pain and suffering, becuse everybody already gets pain and suffering no matter what, and at the true end of every permutation of every possible road is inescapable death for all; all that mutilation is peanuts to that. If I were not a Christian we would all still have pain and suffering and death. Being a Christian (to me, gotta put this there and it still will anger other Christians) is the purposefull effort to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth; sociologically, technologically, medically advancing humanity to eliminate suffering, uniting all the cosmos in peace, brotherhood, respect, and the elimination of evil, fear, and death. Is that going to happen today, tomorrow, next year, next millenia? Probably not , but my every action of every day is to work toward that ultimate goal, to measurably improve what is within my limited power to touch. In the immidieate sense, being a christian is to be Christ-like, To not be a dick to people in any area of life (that means in business, in my personal life, my intended legacy is the improvement of humanity), and raise my children to not be dicks so that hopefully they raise their children not to be dicks and so on, and I am promised that all my efforts, and all the efforts of humanity by Romans 9:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." The ultimate goal is make manifest the kingdom of heaven on earth, and in the process reduce the ratio of damned to elect from 4 out of 5 to 0 out of 1, and a few trillion years of that should make the hell cut off from the presence of God seem small indeed.

And the other big, immidieate upshot is, from Philippians 4:7, "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." I've stopped worrying about things I cannot control. I literally cannot stress enough that not worrying means I do not plan, I'm commanded to be wise and prudent by making informed decisions, Proverbs 13:16, "Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge: but a fool layeth open his folly.", but a big part of being a Christian is trusting that what God wants is better, in every sense of the word, than what you want.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:35 pm

RobbyPants wrote:That being said, based on what you said in your post: why do heaven and hell exist in this paradigm? I guess the obvious answer is "for God's glory", but can you further explain that?

Honestly? I cannot give any other ultimate reasoning for heaven or hell, my presupposition for intelligibility is as circular as it is faith based, and to my understanding everyone's presupposition for intelligibility is circular and faith based as well, whether someone expresses it or not. I have no direct, empirical evidence of heaven or hell, only the faith that God said that's a thing He's gonna do. The purpose of heaven and hell is for the righteous and the unrighteous that God made for those purposes to admit that God is God: Isaiah 45:23, "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.", and again in Romans 14:11-12, "For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:43 pm

I have a question. How do you elect which passages in the bible to take to heart and which not to? Obviously you don't adhere to every single verse, so what rubric do you use to decide what your particular version of the sky daddy wants you to use?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:47 pm

Hicks wrote: Honestly? I cannot give any other ultimate reasoning for heaven or hell, my presupposition for intelligibility is as circular as it is faith based, and to my understanding everyone's presupposition for intelligibility is circular and faith based as well, whether someone expresses it or not. I have no direct, empirical evidence of heaven or hell, only the faith that God said that's a thing He's gonna do.

Fair enough.

Hicks wrote:The purpose of heaven and hell is for the righteous and the unrighteous that God made for those purposes to admit that God is God: Isaiah 45:23, "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.", and again in Romans 14:11-12, "For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."

Doesn't Romans 9:17-22 make it seem that we aren't so much choosing to be righteous, but rather being being shown mercy or being hardened without any of our own input?

I mean, I guess strictly speaking, that doesn't contradict what you say; it just would mean that whether a person is righteous or not has nothing to do with who they are or what they chose to do.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 5:01 pm

Well Hicks, that is a logically coherent theology to have, much more so than most officially sanctioned philosophies. Although as you've doubtless noticed, most people, even most self described Christians, find your arguments equal parts unconvincing and horrifying.

The quoting of scripture basically never convinces anyone of anything. Whatever English translation of the bible you happen to have is just one translation of many of an arbitrary and contentious collection of contradictory and historically inaccurate texts written by various humans who were usually quite removed in time and space from the events they are talking about. For any quote you care to bring up, not only is there quite likely to be a contradicting quote in the bible you happen to be quoting from, but there are probably at least a dozen versions of the bible of seemingly equal providence that don't include the quote at all. To the majority of the Earth's population who are not Christians, any quote you bring up has to be weighed against the Koran, the Tripitaka, and the Bhagavad Gita. But even other Christians all have their favorite bible version and their own interpretation of which passages are literally true, which are metaphorical, and which are just poetry or human fallibility.

The second big problem you have is that the god you've described is basically Yog Sothoth - indescribable and powerful beyond understanding, but also uncaring and terrible. Having created a cosmic horror as your god, there seems no reason or purpose in worshiping or even acknowledging it. Even if you were compelled to believe in such a monster, why would you want to be closer to it after you died? You have created a Morton's Fork where seemingly all roads lead to rejecting your god. Either it's not real and should be rejected on simple falseness, or it is real and should still be rejected because being forbidden access to the terrifying presence of an uncaring great old one isn't really a penalty. There's no path in which following the commandments of your god to get "rewarded" by huddling eternally in the presence of its terrifying majesty is a thing that sounds like a good idea.

Your sales pitch is basically this:

And while that is internally consistent, people who are more hopeful about the future than that, which is almost everyone, are not going to be persuaded.

-Username17

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:00 pm

Wait.

Hicks said that he believes that simply having faith on Yog Sothoth God isn't enough. God has to personally elect people to be saved.

And yet, he goes through life without fear or worry. Even if his eternal salvation is entirely dependent on the desires of a capricious entity. The terrifying funny bit is that it's humanly impossible to identify the "hardened heart" condition. People suffering from it behave identically to people loved by God, except that in the post-facto narrative the writer takes to a few facts to use as "proof". It doesn't matter the good things Esau did or that Jacob was basically a swindler: God rejected one and elected another and that's that. And one can't even deflect this criticism by going "new covenant this, Jesus Christ's general salvation that" because the quote used to support the "God is whimsical, deal with it" position is from The Son himself (Mathew 7:22-23).

That alone should wrack a Christian with doubt until the day he dies, but I guess Cognitive Dissonance always finds a way.

On a related subject, the stated Christian objectives ("sociologically, technologically, medically advancing humanity to eliminate suffering, uniting all the cosmos in peace, brotherhood, respect, and the elimination of evil, fear, and death.") are absolutely at odds with "god picks favorites".

"The ultimate goal is make manifest the kingdom of heaven on earth, and in the process reduce the ratio of damned to elect from 4 out of 5 to 0 out of 1" can't logically happen, because God still gets to elect people from the manifest kingdom of heaven to stay forever in his presence or to damn them to hell.

So yeah, I'm rolling to disbelieve the "internally consistent" bit. There's actually a small core of this faith that IS consistent, but it is: "I believe that the all powerful creator of the Universe is a dangerous and irrational creature, so it's in my best self interest to do everything to stay on its good side."

With a core like that, it's no wonder that every other seemingly nice thing that a believer would claim to follow from it rests on a very shaky foundation.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:23 pm

There is another corner of Christianity wherein God is not the omnis. The Mormons, for example, use the term omnipresent while not actually believing in omnipresence. God is able to be everywhere because he has an omnipresent minion (Mormons don't accept the trinity, so the Holy Ghost is not an aspect of God). The HG is essentially a snitch.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:38 pm

Hicks wrote:lotsa stuff

Well, shit. That's more internally consistent than I was when I was a Christian, so good on you, there. I guess.

DSMatticus wrote:A torturer kidnaps five men. To determine their fate, he draws straws on their behalf. The torturer takes the first man aside, and tells him that because his straw was the longest that he will leave unscathed with a small fortune in material wealth. Then, the torturer flays the second, blinds the third, cripples the fourth, and castrates the fifth. "Thank you," the first man says earnestly, standing amongst his mutilated companions, "you have both my gratitude and respect."

I'm admittedly not certain what point you're trying to make here, because I can totally see this happening. Stockholm Syndrome is a thing, and when someone has it in their power to gruesomely torture you, shows they have that power, and then doesn't (or even just slaps you around a little), it's not unusual for you to be honestly grateful for it.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:58 pm

Here's a question I always thought was fun; if you were the omnipotent creator of the universe, would you have done things differently? Note that if you say "no," you're forced to own the whole "children starving in Africa" thing. Note that if you appeal to circumstances outside human knowledge which might prevent god from solving such problems, then we're clearly not talking about an omnipotent creator, because something is cockblocking his mercy. Note that if you agree that you would do things differently, then it follows that god is somehow lacking and unworthy of absolute respect or glorification.

momothefiddler wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:A torturer kidnaps five men. To determine their fate, he draws straws on their behalf. The torturer takes the first man aside, and tells him that because his straw was the longest that he will leave unscathed with a small fortune in material wealth. Then, the torturer flays the second, blinds the third, cripples the fourth, and castrates the fifth. "Thank you," the first man says earnestly, standing amongst his mutilated companions, "you have both my gratitude and respect."
I'm admittedly not certain what point you're trying to make here, because I can totally see this happening. Stockholm Syndrome is a thing, and when someone has it in their power to gruesomely torture you, shows they have that power, and then doesn't (or even just slaps you around a little), it's not unusual for you to be honestly grateful for it.

That is actually exactly my point. Genuine respect for the god Hicks describes comes off as either Stockholm syndrome/battered-wife syndrome or as a sociopathic lack of empathy; either you respect god because of an irrational emotional response to your own victimization, or you respect god because you do not give a fuck about having to kneel in the blood of his victims to thank him for the gifts he's given you. Sure, fearful deference would be rational, in that when you absolutely cannot escape the cycle of abuse, making your immortal omnipotent sadist husband his sandwiches is depressingly prudent. But real emotional attachment comes off as wildly inappropriate, because... well... it is.

And that is without even touching the matter that you have no reason to believe the immortal omnipotent sadist husband in question is even real - you just invented him one night in a fever dream and are "pretty sure" he is responsible for everything good or bad that's ever happened to you and are similarly "pretty sure" things will go better for you in the long run if you make him those sandwiches.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 8:18 pm

A lot of this boils down to the origins of Christianity in what was the national religion a relatively small, historically insignificant, and let us not forget fractious ethnic minority. The Old Testament totally confirms that the Jews are God's chosen people, and you see the shit he put them through - centuries of trial and ordeal, slavery and warfare depending on whether or not they were righteous enough or in the right way. If anything good happened, it was God's mercy and benevolence in physical form to make your life awesome; and if anything bad happened, it was God's judgment on you for sacrificing the wrong color cow or not stoning your aunt when she moved villages or eating a couple spicy prawns. It was very patently that level of tribal law bullshit, and it very blatantly didn't apply to anyone else, and holy shit that means that you could be fucking Pharaoh or Sargon in this life and God was pretty cool with that.

The eternal reward hereafter was basically invented because you're not going to see your prayers answered now. It's not a bad selling point circa 30 A.D. - life is hard and sucks pretty much anywhere unless you're really good royalty or a Roman senator or something. The idea that there's a better life after this is a selling point that's been around since at least ancient Egypt; being able to declare that yours is the only true religion and so all the golden-calf worshiping assholes paying taxes to the temple of Baal are going to hell is just a bonus. Remember, these are still mainly agricultural and mercantile folk; they understand the basic premise of suffering now to enjoy the fruits of the harvest later. There's a transactional nature to Judaism and Christianity in that respect.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:24 pm

Perhaps the oldest traditional answer is that, being mere humans, we don't understand enough of good and evil (or of the consequences that arise from events) to be able to judge the world or God's actions.

It does seem a bit much to expect the universe to be designed to satisfy our wants.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:36 pm

That's just God of the Gaps, though. It's the argument to stop thinking and assume that the book/priests are right and not to be questioned. Except we already know that the book/priests have been observably, unquestionably wrong about basic things; fuck, they get the value of pi wrong in the Old Testament. Ineffability is not a good fucking argument for why there's suffering in the universe.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:58 pm

DSMatticus wrote:Here's a question I always thought was fun; if you were the omnipotent creator of the universe, would you have done things differently? Note that if you say "no," you're forced to own the whole "children starving in Africa" thing. Note that if you appeal to circumstances outside human knowledge which might prevent god from solving such problems, then we're clearly not talking about an omnipotent creator, because something is cockblocking his mercy. Note that if you agree that you would do things differently, then it follows that god is somehow lacking and unworthy of absolute respect or glorification.

There's always the chance that the omnipotent creator of the Universe is into Physics and not Ethics, so the Universe is actually just a huge physics sandbox. Its left to run for a while and then some bits of matter here and there acquire intelligence by natural processes and then these animated bits start to make wild claims about how they were created. What should the creator god even do in this situation?

Its perfectly in their right to not ruin the simulation by interfering to ease these creatures suffering. After all, they only got sentience by evolving it through struggle for survival in the first place, a process that produces endless suffering and death.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 11:35 pm

I never found the problem of evil to be that big a deal honestly. I mean sure, it is true, that absent stupid wiggling people have to admit that God isn't one of those things, but who fucking cares.

Hicks Selfish Bastard Sadist God isn't really any stupider than a hypothetical all three god. Nor is a Deist Not Give A Fuck God, nor is a Finititely Caring and he only cares about people named F'taganahnanana, nor is a Finitely powerful but still super way powerful universe creator god. Like, none of these are really appreciably less stupid a concept then a tri-omni god.

For me, I can understand why someone sufficiently ignorant might look at the world and say "man there must be some kind of supernatural force" because from a position of ignorance, people have a tendency to make things up, but what really genuinely frightens the shit out of me is when someone calls this thing God. Because without fail, the thing they call God is extremely human mind like, and extremely effable.

That drives me mad, because like, if there were aliens, I'd expect them to think and feel somewhat different from us, because of differing origins of their minds, but I would also expect some similarities, because they would also likely be created from natural selection on random mutation. But like, a supernatural existence would clearly have nothing like any of the intentions, attributes, feelings, or thought patterns attributed to them. Like even Hick's selfish sadistic bastard god is still basically a super human sounding asshole, in ways that basically make no sense for an actual supernatural universe creating being.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 1:15 am

Maybe this is because I was raised Unitarian Universalist but I never got why people stress out about the existence/non-existence of god.

If God exists and is truly benevolent then it should all work out in the end, thus Univeralism. If God isn't benevolent as many seem believe we're probably fucked anyway. And if God doesn't exist than we're just getting worked up for no reason. Regardless it seems like stressing out about it is pointless.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 1:52 am

Occluded Sun wrote:Perhaps the oldest traditional answer is that, being mere humans, we don't understand enough of good and evil (or of the consequences that arise from events) to be able to judge the world or God's actions.

It does seem a bit much to expect the universe to be designed to satisfy our wants.

Ah, the old cop out answer. Doesn't make sense? Say that it can't make sense and you should believe it anyway. I mean, in the strictest sense of the word, it could still all be true, but you could say that about anything nonfalsifiable.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 1:55 am

Lord Mistborn wrote:Maybe this is because I was raised Unitarian Universalist but I never got why people stress out about the existence/non-existence of god.

Presumably because most people are not Unitarian Universalists, and instead believe in a god who commands and forbids specific acts, and like 95% of those acts are horrible.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:05 am

You can have a non-omnibenevolent god who is not directly evil if you grant that the god doesn't privilege humans over any other particular bit of the universe. Whether the physicist god or something even more inhuman. But at that point you're obviously not any kind of Christian and it kind of begs the question of what makes you think such a god exists at all.

The reason why I am an atheist is that I have never seen any experiential reason to believe god (any flavor of god) exists and I have never met a theist who was willing to properly accept the burden of proof.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:19 am

shinimasu wrote:That reminds me of a friend of mine who used an analogy of not giving your dog certain foods because it'll make them sick. They reeally want that chocolate and can't understand why you're not letting them have this one thing when you let them have so many other things. They can't comprehend that the chocolate is poison but you, as a being of higher rational thought, know it will kill your pet.

I'm not entirely on board with that analogy but I have to admit if I were to go omnibenevolent again the "picture so big it is outside the scope of your limited processing power" would probably be the way I do it.

Occluded Sun wrote:Perhaps the oldest traditional answer is that, being mere humans, we don't understand enough of good and evil (or of the consequences that arise from events) to be able to judge the world or God's actions.

It does seem a bit much to expect the universe to be designed to satisfy our wants.

Schleiermacher wrote:You can have a non-omnibenevolent god who is not directly evil if you grant that the god doesn't privilege humans over any other particular bit of the universe.

http://infidels.org/library/modern/mark ... aract.html

"I firmly declare," averred the pious Dr. M, "that the existence of horrendous suffering does not count in the slightest against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinitely benevolent God."

"How do you figure?" replied the skeptical Dr. X. "Think of all of the horrible things in the world we try our utmost to prevent, from murder to cancer. If any human being had the power to rid of us these things, but refused to use that power, we would not hesitate to question his morality. If God exists, surely He has the requisite power, yet clearly He fails to use it. Doesn't that give us at least some reason to believe that He is not perfectly good?"

"It gives us not even the faintest whisper of a reason," responded Dr. M.

"How do you figure?" repeated Dr. X, frowning.

"My dear Dr. X," said Dr. M, "you do admit that there are certain goods that one cannot have unless they are prefaced with suffering? For instance, it hurts to get an immunization shot, but it is needed for good health, correct?"

"Quite so," said Dr. X.

"And does the child receiving the immunization understand why it is needed, or does the child only dread the pain?"

"He only dreads the pain."

"Will a benevolent parent, then, spare the child the pain, or will he do what is needed to ensure the health of the child, even at the expense of the pain of a shot, which the child cannot understand?"

"He will protect the health of the child, of course."

"Think, then," said Dr. M, "about how we stand in relation to God. God's knowledge is infinite, whereas ours is finite. We are, therefore, like children before God. How do we know, then, that there is no greater good of which God is aware and we are not, that is made possible only by our suffering? How do we know that rape and murder and torture and cancer are not all like immunizations administered by a loving doctor? The fact that God permits suffering cannot be evidence against his goodness unless we could rightly expect any greater purpose behind our suffering to be evident to us. But because of the infinite gulf between our knowledge and God's, we should not expect such a purpose to be evident to us. Thus, no amount of suffering could possibly constitute any evidence against the goodness of God."

"Hmm," mused Dr. X, "I'm not convinced."

"That's unfortunate," said Dr. M. "for the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, and then, of course, it will be too late to become a Christian."

A few years passed, and then the day of the Lord came, like a thief in the night. Dr. M certainly felt the greatest regret that Dr. X, who had still not become a Christian, would be consigned to Hell, but as for himself, he looked forward to receiving his prize.

What a shock, then, when he stood before the Throne of Judgment, and, instead of welcoming him to eternal paradise, God stepped down from the Throne, wielding a wicked, blood-encrusted flail, and began to flog Dr. M mercilessly, cackling with lunatic delight. Hours later, when Dr. M was lying practically insensible on the ground, nearly every one of his bones broken, and the very skin flayed from his flesh, God gave Dr. M a solid kick, and sent him tumbling into the lake of fire. Dr. M landed next to the equally broken Dr. X, who, trying to make the best of a bad situation, was making an effort to smoke his pipe, which itself was in flames.

"Well, hello, Dr. M," said Dr. X. "Quite extraordinary if you look around: your infinitely benevolent God has dumped everyone in here, Christian and non-Christian alike, and after such horrible torture, too. What do you think of Him now?"

"On the contrary," said Dr. M, "none of this counts in the faintest against the goodness of God. We are still finite, and He is still infinite. We still cannot know that there is not some greater good which requires all of this."

Dr. X raised his eyebrows, and replied, reflectively, "Hmm."

A thousand years passed in the lake of fire, with some new, grotesque violation visited daily upon all of the inhabitants by a gleeful God, and Dr. X once again asked the question of Dr. M.

"Do you think you have sufficient evidence now?"

"No," said Dr. M. "This doesn't serve as even the most minute particle of evidence against the goodness of God. There is still an eternity of time left. The time that has passed has been finite. It is still possible that there is some greater good that requires us to suffer horribly for a thousand years, and which requires God to act as though he is enjoying torturing us. We can't expect that we would understand this reason, since our minds are like the minds of children compared to His."

"Hmm," replied Dr. X, puffing on his pipe.

One hundred thousand billion eons later, nothing had changed.

"Well," said Dr. X, "the logic is still the same. Do you still think there's no evidence against the infinite goodness of God?"

"No," sighed Dr. M. "He's a jerk."

"Yes," said Dr. X, "I realized it from the start."

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:54 am

I'm not sure why you quoted me there, both because you took my first sentence out of context and because I pretty clearly said "non-omnibenevolent".

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:22 am

While that's an amusing story, Lago, (I particularly liked the flaming pipe bit) even the supposed god is non-omnipotent. If there was some greater good that could be had through human suffering, that humans could not understand as a child cannot understand the necessary pain of a shot*, an omnipotent being could, definitionally, not only create that good without human suffering, but could also explain it to humans. If he cannot do either of those things, clearly he is not omnipotent.

*Parents on the Den- do you find it true that children cannot understand why they must suffer the pain of a shot? Have any of you tried to explain to your children why they need the shot?