God | Random thoughts
Is a question many atheists have been asked in one form or another. Many have given varied answers to the question and my contribution, though not new, is to say evidence that would be accepted by any reasonable person/observer.
But who is a reasonable observer/person?
Abstract philosophy and exercise is only suited for that person who is well fed and housed. The practical man or woman has use for philosophy to the extent to which it is relevant to their lives and until professional philosophers address issues of practical men and women, their works will remain in university bookshelves read only by other professional philosophers.
Tagged God, Philosophy
Tagged God, Hell, Love, Religion
I have mentioned elsewhere I am reading a book by El-Saadawi titled Diary of a child name Souad, which was her first literary work. It is presented as narrative, interposed with dialogue in various places, but of a child. And at some point, the child wonders
what the benefit is for a human to think and choose good, for example, if God has decreed evil for him?
Is not everything god’s will? She continues to ask
can a human do good against God’s will?
And we have her father respond thus
God decrees evil for evil people and for good ones, he decrees good
the Souad asks a follow up question
God is the one who creates the evil and the good, can the evil become good against God’s will
and finally in anger, her father responds, and it could be any believer in DCT or any of those millions who justify the Canaanite massacre
this is God’s wisdom in his creation and he is free to do what he wants with his slaves. He gives to who he wants, and denies who he wants, and he bestows gifts on who he wants, and leads astray who he wants. Everything goes according to his will. He is the wise knower.
and this reminds me of the book by Boethius, Consolations of philosophy, where Fortune is portrayed as both blind and capricious, favouring whom she wills and reminding Boethius he has no reason to complain about his situation.
Tagged god's will, Good and evil
While this article claims to offer a proof of god that the author thinks persuasive, I hate to be the one to show it fails at what it aims at proving.
A being is said to be possible if we can conceive no contradiction in the idea of it, and impossible if we can conceive a contradiction (as we do in the idea of a square triangle, for example).
but this cannot be said to be true for
an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God
for this contains contradictions.
From the word god, the theist derived no argument in his favour; it teaches nothing, defines nothing, demonstrates nothing, explains nothing.
Bradlaugh Charles in Plea for atheism
Tagged Theism
But from whom and what exactly?
The author of this post after reminding us that what god is has not been coherently defined, explores the question of the goodness of god. He notes many theists are quick to say that god is by definition good and they have used this to defend atrocities such as those in Numbers. They claim the killing of the innocent Egyptians was good because god commanded it.
Their greatest sarcasm is to say Jesus os god, whatever your persuasions, came to save us. One must ask why we should be saved? And from whom? A good god?
The same religious people tell us god has its standard of good and as such we cannot use our standard to question the goodness of god. I want any of you, readers, to tell me what and how these fellows came to know of the standard of good used by the gods and why we should give a fuck about it if it is not relevant to our lives?
In the movie, god on trial, one of the judges says their god is not good. It was only on their side. If the god of the bible were real, that comment, would in my view be correct.
What is it we would be saved from? Our natures? That which we are not the author? Our desires? What exactly?
Tagged Atheism, is god good