Well, so do I, but I am approaching this as more an academic exercise, in fact I am attempting to create a God in a particular image - I believe that is what Kerry is trying to do here - questions of his existance aside, how can we come up with an God who appears to us as both benevolent and malevolent? I think Lincoln accomplishes it here, and the same principles he enuncuates here coould just as easily apply to the tsanami:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

My wife bought me "The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am" for Xmas. The last essay is by Peter Hare who has written a lot on the problem of evil. At the end he argues that Tony Soprano is the Old Testament deity writ small. This earthquake was nothing more than a gargantuan mob hit.

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Here is a little excerpt from George Carlin. Not to offend anybody, however I find it hilarious and so very true:

“But in the bulls***t department a businessman can’t hold a candle to a clergyman. “Cause I got to tell you the truth folks, I got to tell you the truth, when it comes to bulls***t, big time, major league bulls***t you have to stand in aaww, in aaww of the all time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims. Religion. No contest. Religion easily has the greatest bulls***t story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there is an invisible man living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day and the invisible man has a special list of ten things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever ‘till the end of time. But He loves you. He loves you. He loves you and He needs money! He always needs money! He is all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, all wise somehow just can’t handle money. Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bulls***t story, holly s***t! But, I want you to know something, when it comes to believe in God, I really tried, I really, really tried. I tried to believe that there is a God who created each of us in his own image and likeness, loves us very much and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe but I got to tell ya the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize that something is f***d up. Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the ice-capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong in a resume of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of s***t you would expect from a temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me in any decently run Universe this guy would be out on his powerful ass a long time ago. So, so if, if there is a God, if there is, I think most reasonable people might agree that He is at least incompetent and maybe, just maybe doesn’t give a s**t. Doesn’t give a s**t. Which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results. So rather than be just one of these mindless, religious robots blindly believing that all of this is in the hands of some spooky, incompetent father figure who doesn’t give a s**t I decided to look around for something else to worship. ………………..
I often thought that people treat God rather rudely, don’t you? Trillions and trillions of prayers every day asking and pleading and begging for favors, do this and gimme that, I need a new car, I wanna better job and most of this praying takes place on Sunday, His day off. It is not nice. And it is no way to treat a friend. …………
But I say fine ,pray for anything you want, pray for anything but what about the Divine Plan, remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought ,decided that it was a good plan and put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now you come along and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want is not in God’s Devine Plan. What do you want him to do? Change his plan? Just for you? Doesn’t seem a little arrogant? It is a Divine Plan. What is the use of being God if every run-down smack with a two dollar prayer book can come along and f***k up your plan? And here is something else, another problem you might have. Suppose your prayers aren’t answered, what do you say? Well it is God’s will! Thy will be done. Fine ,but if it is God’s will and he is going to do what he wants to anyway why the f**k bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Couldn’t you just skipped the praying part and go right to his will? It is all very confusing……."
George Carlin: You are all diseased.

Alex

Kirk, it can't be done. The latest Act-of-God is a perfect example of how you would have to redefine benevolence to such an extent that it just silly. The most I could say is that God likes life - as in life on earth in totality - but in nothing specific, not even individual species (all go extinct).

On the religious front, I cannot imagine what kind of ********* would even begin to explain to the millions who have lost family in this latest event that it is a blessing in disguise. Of course, given the human capacity for self-deception, it will make no dent in those who believe in God as pure good.

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Ok.
You're wrong.
You're rude.

Straightforward enough?

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dacia, that is very funny, and sums it up too.

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Yes, and I understand that I sound like a conceited moron to you and other religious readers. But help me out - why do bad things happen by chance to the inncocent? I'm open to reason.

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Well its is diffucult to apply Lincoln's reasoning to the tsunami, but we can probably think of some "reason in the all together" for it - Over population? For the good of mankind as it learns shared cooperation? Someone will think of something. As I mentioned in another thread, Islam gets to reap the benefits from this - the whole scene looks more like Allah's handy work than that of Christ-Spirit-God. Those wishy-washy Indonesians have not done their duty to their Muslims brothers. The Indians, who have oppressed Muslims in Kashmirs, and the Indian Muslims who live among these infidels get theirs too - and the the sex-crazed Thai and back sliding Malays also get a taste. Allah seems to be a more fitting God for this particular situation. He's a pretty straight forward guy, not chained by tne contradictions of Christianity. He is Fear, not Love. He certainly made his point. I can just hear the street Mullahs laying this down in Jakarta right now. Big benefit for Islamic Fundamentalists coming on this train. If I was a believing Muslim, I;d be ****ting a brick right now.

because if bad things happened only to bad people pretty soon there would be no more bad people and where would be the fun in that?

I gave you one answer to the problem of pain and instead of keenly phrased argument, you heap contempt as though contempt were a valid argument. How is that methodology any different from a flat-browed creationist?

Your last paragraph may be true. Is there a way you can frame it such that it is falsifiable? Else, its a statement of faith, too.

Don't take this the wrong way. It's true, I do have contempt for the notion of a benevolent God. That's a different position, if I even have to say it, than having contempt for the people who believe in such a God. There are many reasons good people believe crazy things.

Let's get all formal about this then. The notion of a benevolent God can be framed as a scientific hypothesis. The null hypothesis is that God is a good guy & the prediction(s) are that suffering, caused by 'nature', does not afflict the innocent. Plainly there is rather a lot of evidence suggesting this hypothesis should be rejected. Wriggling out of this takes multiple forms (i) nature != God (ii) some kind of half-arsed Utilitarian argument, (iii) God means well but isn't omnipotent (a subset of (i))...etc.

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God fails in your test. But is that a fair test of God-ness? If one assumes a God as you describe it, then it's a fair test. But what if God is some heart-consuming Aztec deity that just likes to f**k-around with people's lives? Your test means nothing to the Eater of Souls God. In fact, your soul may be next, WTF?

I may have jumped beyond Kerry's parameters with that God. Oh well, if it's that God, then it will obviously make a lot more sense to mortals--it is exactly congruous with the lives that we bumble through.

But getting back to the more common (western tradition) version of God.

My general agnosticism fails when I admit the possibility of God being so immense that it could devise reality and pass through it unnoticed. (I reject the panentheistic God of process theologians. That guy is weakened so that he is understandable by humanity. If there's a God, I want the big-daddy version, not the idiot step-child.)

So I am left with your test. What is it about our concept of good and evil that we think must be congruous with God's? Well, not to get all Biblical, but it is claimed we're made in his image. But what the devil does that mean? I think it is described in the allegory of Eden, the fruit, the snake, and the lovers and God's prohibition. Free will, even to choose the bad.

So, if we have free will as an image of God's will, do we ever do things of our own free will, that we know will hurt others but will serve a greater good in the end? Yes, we do. Do the people whom we harm necessarily understand why we do it and bless us for the harm we do? Ask a physician. Ask a judge.

So I don't have a problem with pain in the world of a good and loving God. I do have a problem with lack of corporeal reality attached to an almighty being. That seems totally irrational to me. But then, that's precisely why we call a relationship with God, "Faith", not "Knowledge".

Bot

Food for thought. It's odd how the Ontological argument proves (let's assume it does for now) that God exists and creates the whole problem of evil all at the same time. So is the following somewhat correct?

Botnst: This is the best of all possible worlds.

jjl: I'm afraid so.

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This seems to be the God-isn't omnipotent argument - he can't get his $hit together so has to unleash the odd 'natural' disaster now and again, because it is the only way of doing 'much more good in the future'. C'mon. It also amounts to measuring God by our own standards of vice & stupidity - hey look, we're made in God's image, and look how dumb we are, so that explains all those dead children - back to church with you.

'Faith' I just don't get - it's like a label on one's forehead saying 'look, I don't f***ing care what the world is like, I WANT it to be like THIS, and I'm going to believe it is like this NO MATTER WHAT'. I think this is the stupidest thing in the visible universe. Or perhaps I haven't seen the light and gained the knowledge that passeth all understanding.

We are apes. Just another of the millions of species on earth, most of which (>99.99%) have gone extinct, as we will surely do too. Other more advanced species, in other times and other places will view us (if they ever dig up our fossils or view our TV transmissions(!)) in the same way we regard animals - brutes, capable of only primitive thought, if at all, while we, humans, occupy some lofty heights deserving the regard of the almightly on a personal level, at some endpoint of a cosmic plan. It is beyond absurd, and there is abundant evidence that says so.

You may be closer to the mark with your Aztec God.

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'83 280CE
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'83 911 turbo

"Faiith" is an odd concept. It literally means "a strong hope that something is true." In the case of religion it is a strong hope that something unprovable is true. To me, it seems like a roadblock to reason.