Does anyone have a strong argument against God?

[Astrocyte]

-- God has a plan. He hasn't told you the plan because you wouldn't understand, or because your knowing the plan might inherently defeat the plan, or simply because it's not your place to know the plan. You must have faith that the plan is ultimately beneficial to you.
-- God allows these events to happen to test the faithful. He's watching to see what you do in the face of such bad things.
-- God allows these events to happen to punish the faithful. If the faithful were more faithful, they wouldn't happen.
-- You don't need to worry about it, God doesn't let these things happen to the faithful. If they do happen, he'll fix it soon, or they're blessings in disguise.
-- What are you doing sitting around while others claim your God isn't real? Go get 'em! (where "get" can mean "convert," "kill," or "threaten to kill if they don't convert")

The first reason is the only one that is not completely ignorant/contrary to Scripture.

Of course, Christians who agree with points other than the first would argue that your understanding of scripture is incorrect!

(For what it's worth, these are not necessarily specific references to Christian doctrine. I have heard each of the above from followers of at least two different religions.)

[daccoo]

Holy Fire in Jerusalem.

Miracle that happens every year and so far scientist failed to provide strong evidence how that has something to do with nature ,cosmos ,gravity...
The flame that burns for 20 minutes at which it is impossible to burn up and strange think is that comes from the sky...

[Neopergoss]

I would've hoped that someone would've at least compared their opinion to my own. Again, saying "God could not eliminate these things without also eliminating freedom and, therefore, love." is not proven to be true. Again, there are ways that he could've made us in a way in which we have free will and yet did no wrong. That's what omnipotency is.

I happen to agree with you that we could have perfectly good free will without evil, but Christians tend to frame good vs evil choices as the only ones that matter. For them, evil has to exist for any choices that matter to exist.

[BluePriest]

How can I not be angry when you Christians say I will burn in Hell forever for not believing your dogma? This has irritated me ever since my first contact with Christianity.

I hate this as well. I think that if you think this, just please keep it to yourself.

Im sorry, not trying to be insensitive here, but you go to a religion thread, enter a debate with christians, and then get angry when you are told you are going to hell? You obviously already have knowledge of this. If it angers you then I assume there is something much deeper, considering I am sure there are plenty of religions where I am not going to that religions "heaven" and could be going to that religions "hell". However, it would not upset me because I already know where I am going. I know what is true and therefor what other people think will happen to me when I die is irrelevant. Perhaps you should examine what you believe, because if someone saying you are going to hell bothers you when you dont believe a thing we say, then there seems to be some internal conflict.

I would've hoped that someone would've at least compared their opinion to my own. Again, saying "God could not eliminate these things without also eliminating freedom and, therefore, love." is not proven to be true. Again, there are ways that he could've made us in a way in which we have free will and yet did no wrong. That's what omnipotency is.

I happen to agree with you that we could have perfectly good free will without evil, but Christians tend to frame good vs evil choices as the only ones that matter. For them, evil has to exist for any choices that matter to exist.

Adam and Eve were originally created without sin. They had free will, but only did good until they were tricked.

[Neopergoss]

I would've hoped that someone would've at least compared their opinion to my own. Again, saying "God could not eliminate these things without also eliminating freedom and, therefore, love." is not proven to be true. Again, there are ways that he could've made us in a way in which we have free will and yet did no wrong. That's what omnipotency is.

I happen to agree with you that we could have perfectly good free will without evil, but Christians tend to frame good vs evil choices as the only ones that matter. For them, evil has to exist for any choices that matter to exist.

Adam and Eve were originally created without sin. They had free will, but only did good until they were tricked.

God should've made them smarter, then, or he shouldn't have created evil, seductive snakes. Or is that asking too much? 

[BluePriest]

If God is so powerful he should really be able to create angels capable of glorifying him. Why choice between good and evil should be the only method of glorification is beyond me. It sounds like a special pleading.

Its responses like this that let me know who really understands Gods love for us and who doesn't. It is most similar to a father wanting his child to understand the difference between right and wrong, but understanding that the child will reach an age where he must make his own choices, and face the consequences/

If God created the universe, he didn't have to make Hell the alternative to Heaven. Seems pretty sadistic -- not loving. "The consequences" could've been whatever he chose them to be. He also controls the whole universe, including each person's environment. You'd think he'd be able to craft each person's upbringing such that they all grew up to be good people -- if he were such a good "father." If the answer to that is that some people are just born rotten, destined to become evil, you'd think he'd be able to prevent them from being born that way.

It takes some serious doublethink to accept these kinds of ideas.

No, you just WANT to see it one way, therefor it is very easy for you to see it that way, meanwhile, it is hard for me to look at it through your angle due to me understanding God better (although we can never truely understand him).

Your basic responses (that you continously go back to) are:
1)God doesnt force me to be good, so he is just cruel
2)God allows evil to be in the world, so he must not really care.
3)God will send us to hell, and punishment is unfair.

My 3 basic responses are:
1)You arent truely good if you are forced to be good
2)God allows us to make our own choices, even if those choices are evil.
3)You send yourself to hell based on your choices.

I can go into semantics such as how Hell wasnt created for us, and all sorts of things, however, those mean nothing and are just further extrapolative reasonings of these 3 basic ideas. Bringing up examples isnt even necessary.

I never said we should be forced to be good, it just shouldn't be so hard. It doesn't have to be hard, but it is. Wouldn't it still be a choice if 99.999% of all people were on average likely to succeed? What if the chance was so high that odds were that no one failed? The odds can be whatever God makes them, and he made us poor students taking a hard test.

As for God allowing evil in the world -- he doesn't just allow us to be evil, he's also responsible for catastrophic natural disasters such as the recent tsunami in Japan. I'm sure he had a good reason for that, though. I hope they learned whatever lesson they were supposed to over there, right? Or are they all going to Hell anyway because they weren't baptized or didn't believe in Christ?

As for sending ourselves to Hell, that's ridiculous -- God is responsible for the existence of Hell, end of story. You can rationalize all you want, but the fact is that it's irrational. Bring up "examples" if you want, but rationalizing the irrational is a pointless exercise.

I would've hoped that someone would've at least compared their opinion to my own. Again, saying "God could not eliminate these things without also eliminating freedom and, therefore, love." is not proven to be true. Again, there are ways that he could've made us in a way in which we have free will and yet did no wrong. That's what omnipotency is.

I happen to agree with you that we could have perfectly good free will without evil, but Christians tend to frame good vs evil choices as the only ones that matter. For them, evil has to exist for any choices that matter to exist.

Adam and Eve were originally created without sin. They had free will, but only did good until they were tricked.

God should've made them smarter, then, or he shouldn't have created evil, seductive snakes. Or is that asking too much? 

You seem to be missing a very basic point. So lets go to it. You talk abuot how it is so hard to be good, so lets focus on just that. What sin is so hard for you to deny? What do you think is so hard about being "good"

[Neopergoss]

You seem to be missing a very basic point. So lets go to it. You talk abuot how it is so hard to be good, so lets focus on just that. What sin is so hard for you to deny? What do you think is so hard about being "good"

Obviously it's hard enough that there is a lot of sin in this world. Would you deny that? I wasn't just talking about myself personally. A kind God wouldn't make humans so prone to evil.

[BluePriest]

You seem to be missing a very basic point. So lets go to it. You talk abuot how it is so hard to be good, so lets focus on just that. What sin is so hard for you to deny? What do you think is so hard about being "good"

Obviously it's hard enough that there is a lot of sin in this world. Would you deny that? I wasn't just talking about myself personally. A kind God wouldn't make humans so prone to evil.

Youre talking general. I want to get to specifics. General sin is a hard thing to tackle, instead it is much easier to get to the specific things that are considered "hard sins"

[Neopergoss]

You seem to be missing a very basic point. So lets go to it. You talk abuot how it is so hard to be good, so lets focus on just that. What sin is so hard for you to deny? What do you think is so hard about being "good"

Obviously it's hard enough that there is a lot of sin in this world. Would you deny that? I wasn't just talking about myself personally. A kind God wouldn't make humans so prone to evil.

Youre talking general. I want to get to specifics. General sin is a hard thing to tackle, instead it is much easier to get to the specific things that are considered "hard sins"

Well let's start with big fundamental ones, then. Murder is very common. If there were a kind God, he wouldn't have made people so murderous. War is just murder on a large scale and has existed since time immemorial. Why did God make people so violent?

[BluePriest]

How many people have you killed? Just curious. On an individual level, is it really that hard for people to not murder?


Youre trying to keep this as general as possible, I am intentionally (and obviously not trying to hide that I am doing so) sidestepping any generalizations.

[Jenkar]

Well let's start with big fundamental ones, then. Murder is very common. If there were a kind God, he wouldn't have made people so murderous. War is just murder on a large scale and has existed since time immemorial. Why did God make people so violent?

God's ways are ununderstandable to man.

[Neopergoss]

How many people have you killed? Just curious. On an individual level, is it really that hard for people to not murder?


Youre trying to keep this as general as possible, I am intentionally (and obviously not trying to hide that I am doing so) sidestepping any generalizations.

"On an individual level" is a pretty general statement. The whole point is that generally people kill each other, which is the problem. It may be easy for me not to kill other people, but in the right situation I probably would. It's human nature. I'm not saying I hope I would, I'm just being honest about my own nature. I have violently fought against someone before. I'd say it was mainly in self-defense, but in the heat of the moment some of it was retributive for the pain that had been inflicted on me. It's hard to be rational and calm when someone is hurting you.

Well let's start with big fundamental ones, then. Murder is very common. If there were a kind God, he wouldn't have made people so murderous. War is just murder on a large scale and has existed since time immemorial. Why did God make people so violent?

God's ways are ununderstandable to man.

Indeed.