this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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Well, not to get into a theological debate here but there are many logical inconsistencies and paradoxes with religion in general.
Stuff like the "can God create a stone so large that he cannot lift it"; or just seeing all the suffering in the world and trying to justify why a benevolent, all seeing, all knowing, omnipotent being would allow kids to get cancer - either god is not capable to fix it or doesn't care, neither of which is a great outcome.
Just applying Occam's Razor in general makes religion pretty far fetched, especially the more hardline old testament you go: God creating the earth, Noah and the flood, etc. There is just a much simpler explanation to all of it.
I mean no offence to religious people in general, in fact I think religion can be very useful for some to find a purpose or belonging in their lives. I just find the cognitive dissonance of religion impossible to reconcile with reality.
I think the Problem of Evil actually makes sense when you consider eternity and infinity. The infinity that God is and Eternity that Heaven is, earthly sufferings really will be seen to be nothing. You probably don't worry about that exam anymore that you were studying for as a kid. As for the boulder thing, you may as well say maths is illogical as "can you make something greater than infinity" while infinity + 1 is equal to infinity.
As for Occam's razor- how does it explain the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? There's not really a simple explanation to why 2000 years ago, a lot of guys simultaneously told of the same dude who rose from the dead, then lived a life of suffering and no gain and end up dying because they wouldn't claim to be wrong. Along with hundreds of these early Christians turning into thousands. Something big did happen - we count our years by it. It's as if God actually did enter earth as a human.
Let me start with the calendar because I actually had to look up the history of calendars (which was super interesting). The first person to use A.D. was a monk called Dionysius who used it around 525. In the Roman empire years were counted by the year of the current reigning Consul. Dionysius wanted to avoid using the calendar based on Roman emperor Diocletian who widely persecuted christians. This new system was adopted by the church only.
Centering the calendar around nativity of Jesus was only adopted as an official calendar by Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne in around 1600, and the rest of the world changed over to it over time until around 1900.
So the people actually living in 1 A.D. had no idea they were living in the year of the lord.
As far as I know we only really know that Jesus was a real man in the Herodian Kingdom at the time and that he was in fact crucified around 33 A.D. (which would not have been called A.D. at the time). Weather we believe he was truly resurrected is more of a question of faith, relying on religious sources. So basically applying Occam's razor I would say that the resurrection was just part of the religious texts written by monks, not necessarily something that was 100% true.
In maths there are definitely larger and smaller infinities. Take for example the set of all natural numbers [1, 2, 3, ...]. This is an infinite set. Compare this to the set of rational numbers, these can be expressed as a fraction of two natural numbers [1/1, 1/2, 1/3, ...]. There is already an infinite amount of rational numbers between 1 and 2, making this an uncountably larger infinite set. All this being said, the boulder thing always sounded a bit weird to me but it does raise the question of what we mean by omnipotence, and can we accept the existance of such a being, all of this gets very philosophical. (the paradox has several proposed resolutions if you are interested btw, some more satisfying than others)
Which brings us back to the problem of evil. Let's say our lives on Earth are just a test to see if we are accepted in heaven. This explains why bad things happen as they are a test of faith. But this just raises more questions:
Why does it take God our entire lives to decide whether we are accepted? What about babies that die during birth or shortly after? How can they prove their faith?
Anyway, this got way too long. I'd like to reiterate that I think religion has very positive aspects: community, belonging, purpose, an answer to what happens after death.
But I'd also say that historically, religion (especially Christianity) was a tool to keep the masses docile and subdued, allowing the church to hold power over hundreds of years but also kept believers somewhat safe, at lest from their own community - commandments like do not kill, steal, or even Jewish customs of not eating specific types of meat. If they had to make up, or embellish things to keep it going, that was a price they were willing to pay.
Sorry for being pedantic, but the set of rational numbers has the same cardinality (size) as the set of natural numbers, so it’s not “uncountably larger” (in fact, it’s countable). You should’ve chosen the real numbers for your example, which are uncountable.
Sorry, that's right, got it mixed up
Very interesting and balanced response.
I think we choose to believe logic(maths,physics) based on some form of faith, it's more scientific and based on peer reviews but ultimately there are times when some of this logic starts to break down e.g when you start looking at quantum and all the interesting things that can happen in theoretical physics with multiverse theory.
As far fetched as it can seem, I don't think we can totally count out some form of mysticism or higher power. What I would say is that the current versions we have been given are all man made so by nature they have all been manipulated in some way e.g crusades or more currently, the conflict in the middle east.
Some people are afraid of the answer being as simple as "we don't actually know" so they find the closest thing they can stick with to give them purpose.
Simple. Mercy. If we screwed up, then God would destroy us immediately. If God were to just stop evil happening on Earth, he'd have to kill everyone at the first moment that they sin. Either that or take away free will.
Biblical scholars would disagree. The earliest text that we have that mentions the resurrection was written by AD 51.
1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
Again, it's worth mentioning that immediate writings were VERY RARE then. The entire Gospel of Mark would have cost the same as a house for a scribe to copy. Which is why we don't have many writings from that time.
Sorry, but Biblical scholars' proof of the resurrection is from the Bible? You see how that's not convincing right?
God created sin and hell, it didn't need to do that. After three decades as a Christian, the best answer I could get to the question "Why did God make the universe and us in it?" was "so we could praise it for eternity in heaven." So it could have just created us in heaven already. Instead it created a whole universe of randomness and ever-increasing chaos, stuck us in it and said, "You better love me and follow these very specific, often inane and arbitrary rules, or I'll send you to this other place I made where all you feel is pain for eternity." The god of the Bible is an egomaniacal sadist and it's not worthy of your praise.
That's like saying our proof for Caesar is Caesar's writing. Now if I said Caesar's writings were true because he said so, that would be circular reasoning. But no, they are backed up by history. In the same way, the Bible can prove Christianity, but circular reasoning is when I try and use the Bible to prove itself because it says it's true. Although proof can lie within such as criteria of embarrassment, but mainly it's to how it relates to what else we know about that time, which is how it lines up. Unlike, for example, the book of mormon which is completely verifiably fake as it talks about systems in an ancient america which we know didn't exist
I'm taking that as tacit agreement that your god is an egomaniacal sadist but you don't mind cuz it's old, just fyi
How is He a sadist?
He created children and child rape, how is he not?
What's wrong with Children? And didn't we create that atrocity though by choosing to do that? He created sex to be between a consenting man and woman within marriage, not for using to abuse people.
No, by Christian understanding, god made the universe and everything in it. That includes the human capacity for causing pain to others. God also decided our sexual characteristics should fully develop a decade before our mental and emotional capacity, not how I would have done it. It also includes childhood leukemia, SIDS, hydrocephalopathy, measles, polio, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, etc, etc, etc. If god wasn't a sadist, none of those things would exist. Either that or god didn't create them because it doesn't exist. These are the options available to you.
Those things happened because God cursed the earth after we turned against Him.
But by your own holy texts, it knew we would do that before the universe existed, much less the Garden of Eden. If it didn't, then it's not all-knowing, which means it's not God. Either way, it's not worthy of devotion or worship.
And if you want to live your life without God, God respects your decision eternally 👍
If you call lakes of fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and eternal damnation to complete separation from The Light "respect," then I totally get why you worship the dude. I guess he really did create you in his sadistic image. 😘
Yeah, don't worry about kids dying of cancer. They're irrelevant in the vastness that is god.
I wonder, tho. Which one do you mostly lean towards. Are kids dying to punish someone or are they dying to test the parents? Or is there a third, more important reason we mortals can't comprehend? Or is it just about having faith that it's his will?
I can go on a killing spree tomorrow and feel good about myself because that was god's will, right? He allowed it to happen, right?
We've either got free will in which case there's no "god's will" or, we don't actually have free will and everything is predetermined to happen anyway. Not sure which is more fucked up to believe.
But yeah, both are veeeery logical
But the moral code of the Bible is strict and unchangeable. Yet you yourself believe morality is relative. Why then are you content letting this being you admit has no capability for relativistic perspective judge our eternal souls based on said unchangeable moral code? Seems pretty illogical.
When did I say morality is relative?
That's moral relativism to a T. The evil perpetrated by God on humans via unnecessary pain, disease, and death is relatively moral given the vastness of eternity. Basically you're saying it's ok for a god to create little playthings to torture because it lives a long time. I disagree.
Evil isn't perpetuated by God, though. Evil is perpetuated by us.
Perpetuate - "make something continue indefinitely"
So we perpetuate it, but who created it? Who made us with the ability to perpetuate evil? Who decided what is and isn't evil? Why do you only give god credit for the good stuff when you believe it made everything in the universe? You have to count the bad stuff too or it's not really god.
We have free will. Satan brought evil into the world. God will destroy Satan, but first, He's proving Satan wrong that humans aren't unworthy.
Who made Satan? And why would God knowingly enter into a bargain over the souls he created with the embodiment of evil? Why does the most powerful being ever conceived need to prove anything to anyone? Much less someone he created.
Because if God just destroyed us immediately for being evil, would that be merciful?
Stop thanking god for saving us from the evil it created, you sound like a chronically abused spouse defending their attacker. It's Stockholm Syndrome of your Soul. And why do you keep ignoring 95% of my comments? Satan made evil but who made Satan?
God made Satan with free will. If I gave birth to a child, would I be responsible if it starts doing evil?
Legally? Yes. In the case of there being no evil until a god knowingly gave birth to its physical embodiment? Hell fucking yes. If we are God, so is Satan. Remember, "nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him."- John 1:3
There's no such thing as free will in a universe created by an all-powerful, all-knowing being who knows how many hairs are on your head. "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory." The Bible says he knows our every thought before we think it (Psalm 139). “All who dwell on earth will worship (the beast), everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” - Revelation 13:8. So your god knew who would and who wouldn't be a Christian before it even created the universe. Some free will.