This man BTFO Christianty yet it still has believers. Why?

And one more thing! Why create the Tree of Knowledge in the first place? It doesn't do anything of any value except tempt Eve. If God knew putting this tree in his garden would fuck the majority of his beloved children forever and ever, why the fuck did he do it?

The only answer you ever have is "He's God. the rules don't apply to him". In that case, He's no better than a abusive father who punishes his kids for imitating his own bad habits.

user arguing about these things means nothing to christians, they will always find justification in some way or another. Do you think christianity was born out of rationalism? No, then stop trying to use logic when talking about it.

>is all powerful and all knowing
>his creation goes wrong though
kek, either he's not all powerful and all knowing or he's indifferent.

The 1st commandment is the problem. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me".
A world without evil would be godlike

Because faith is indicative of damage in the brain and you can't fix that with logic and reason.

If you think you can be a better God, design your own universe. See if it doesnt get criticized

I like how Christians actually answer this with "You can't know how God works" then they proceed to insert God in everything they can't explain.

E.g. We don't know what started the Big Bang so it had to be God. We don't know the exact, specific processes that led to intelligent life so it had to be God. We don't know the processes of the Earth that resulted in life so it had to be God.
zzz

Christians just can't accept that if there's a being as powerful as God it's probably a sadistic fuck. That's terrifying to think about, that you have been put on this earth not as some test (with a reward awaiting you) but that you are here and suffering for no reason at all or because of some omnipotent asshole.

The truth is the the judaeo-christian god a Mesopotamian war god, Israel was a complete dump around 0 CE, literally nobody cared about it. After Jesus Early christians embellished his life around 100 CE and it slowly spread, but not enough to matter. During the Roman crisis of the 3rd century emperors began to use christianity to compensate for their lack of balls. Our ancestors were converted by the sword or killed and that's when people stopped caring about "logic" or "reason".

Well obviously they believe God created the universe, why wouldnt they? How does this in any way contradict the position that we should not judge God for his actions due to our ignorance?

I don't do this because I think I'm going to win. I do this because it forces them to look like fools in public. Sin is the entire point of the Christian religion - without sin, there's no need for redemption. I'm sure that when others reading the thread see theists struggle to rationalize the unavoidable cruelty of the very concept of a loving creator, much less with the idiocy of their own scripture (Did you know that more Gospels record Jesus cursing a fig tree than record the Sermon on the Mount, the most important moment in His career? The more you know), they start to think more logically about things themselves.

Religion isn't completely evil, it's just bad at finding the truth. I'm sure any day now the Lord will appear in the sky and prove all us atheists wrong. Until then, He cannot even make a single Jow Forums post to prove he exists - all you gotta do is post my email address, Lord, I know you know it.

Humans aren't omnipotent retard. Here, let me BTFO of both Christcucks and Cuckicurus:
>God is all things, and therefore necessarily both good AND evil.
Checkmate omnibenevolentfags.

Attached: e2f49a62a937ebcee5a5812b16aeb77b.jpg (900x1220, 419K)

What would a perfect God do? Please tell

By that logic, I am God as well. So I get to do what I want and it's right because fuck you I'm God lol.

Are you kidding, right?

>God is all things
>each thing is God
Two different statements, brainlet.

Fair enough, but be warned anyone who's genuinely a christian in the modern day is extremely dense or a literal boomer.

Because God has literally infinite power to explain himself. He could have set things up so that humans were born knowing the entire Bible and everything they needed to make an informed choice between good and evil.

But no, he chooses to create us totally ignorant of all the really important shit we need to know, and then we're supposed to rely on faliable humans and books to know His ineffable will? How is that fair or even sane?

>Oh wow, some guy got hit by a truck before he ever heard the Gospel. Well, he is a child of Eve and he had ever chance to repent, right?

I think there's actually a Chick Tract where a little kid goes to hell for not being saved but her rapist goes to heaven after accepting Christ. I know that makes sense in Protestant theology but it's fucking disgusting.

Again, I'm not mad at religious people. I'm mad at people who turn off their brain and heart completely because that's what the preacher tells them the Good Book says God says they should do.

What would a perfect God do? Please tell

flawlessly predict his own post number

God created man to be a free-thinking, free-willed creature. He gave us the choice, ultimately, to love him and follow his commands, or not. He didn't make man to just be his slaves that say they love him. We either choose to love God, or not.

Adam and Eve chose to disobey God's commands. The snake smooth-talked them, but ultimately it was their choice. They sinned, and death is the punishment.

Evil is simply the choice of mankind. You can choose to do evil, or to do good. You can choose to love God, or to not. Simple as that.

You are not God no more than your property is you. We are Its toys essentially, empty vessels through which It expresses Its inscrutable will onto the universe. Reality is God's canvas and our blood and tears are Its paint.

Attached: 220px-Azathoth.jpg (220x297, 36K)

I think a truly perfect God cannot possibly exist, and if it did, it wouldn't need to create a universe for no reason and then force a bunch of us to suffer eternally because we broke the rules he didn't bother to enforce until it was too late. Since this is what Christians say their God did, we can conclude that their God is imperfect. It's a bit different for each monotheistic religion that embraces an infallible God, but basically doing anything for any reason requires God to lack something, and therefore he cannot be perfect in any religion.

No brainlet, it makes you a part of god, not god itself
However this god is all belief is pretty fucking lazy

>A = B
>But B =/= A

You underestimate the negative effects of perfect clarity of mind. God desires your will to be changed, not your mind. If we were absolutely sure of everything in the Bible being true, can you see how that would make it a bit...boring? It becomes a scientific fact, not something you devote your life to.

Before criticizing the way the world works, actually think through the alternatives. And again, we really have no idea what God desires, or how his mind works, so never think that you are above Him.

Epicurus was long before Christianity and iirc St Augustine countered this at one point

Epicurus is an idiot. God stops evil once and for all in Revelation. Also, mankind themselves love to do evil, God simply allows them that choice.

Give me extremely dense boomer Christians all day any day over some of the other types of crazies out there these days. Some conspiracy theories these days require you to have three PhDs to unambiguously debunk them - by comparison pointing out that the Son of God being mean to a tree for not having enough fruit is kind of silly is child's play, and at least Christianity has one or two heartwarming ideas in there.

>nature is plants, animals, rocks...
>rocks are nature, trees are nature, birds are nature...

>Converted by the sword
you're retarded. Only would apply if you're baltic or maybe Saxon.

Why do you think a perfect god can not exist? And why do you think it would not create anything? Is it possible that God is unchanging, and has always created everything, and we are simply riding the illusion of time? What if God is already perfect? Why do you think God created everything for no reason? How do you know His reasons? You are nothing compared to the infinite, why are you so prideful? Do you ever wonder if you are wrong?

Yes, that is correct. Rocks, trees, and birds are nature.

Where in the bible does it say that God is all things?

But a rock itself is not nature. This the fallacy of division. Just because a team is good, does not mean each individual member is good. Every piece and structure that composes a building is not a building, itself. This is basic logic

He clearly opposes Christianity. Learn to read.

>You underestimate the negative effects of perfect clarity of mind. God desires your will to be changed, not your mind. If we were absolutely sure of everything in the Bible being true, can you see how that would make it a bit...boring? It becomes a scientific fact, not something you devote your life to.

So what you're saying is that God tortures the majority of human beings who will every exist forever and ever in the worst imaginable way so that a handful can gain some extra enjoyment out of serving him? Dude, re-read that and pretend I'm talking about a king and his subects. That's some Vlad the Impaler level sick shit right there. A human who even tried to do that would be executed for war-crimes. I'm okay with worshiping a God that punishes the wicked but when your closest human analogue is Stalin I just can't really rejoice for Jesus.

>Before criticizing the way the world works, actually think through the alternatives. And again, we really have no idea what God desires, or how his mind works, so never think that you are above Him.

If you can literally do anything, there are infinite alternatives! You make it sound like God is carefully weighing the pros and cons of different plans, but that would mean he's limited in his choices. He could easily just decide that the negatives of any given plan just don't apply. He's God, after all. If you make him all-powerful you have then morally justify everything in the entire universe. I'm not above Him - I'm asking him to do me a favor my human friends would do without a second thought - just respond to this post with my name or email. The fact that God must be perfectly aware of this post but chooses to damn me because He's unwilling to post on Jow Forums is fucking irredeemable.

I know I'm wrong. And I know you're wrong, too, or at least that nothing you said had any practical implications of the world I live in.

I oppose christianity too, but I don't construct braindead strawmen when I'm pointing out its flaws.

If you were God, what would you do? Simple question.

>This the fallacy of division
No it isn't. The fallacy of division is when you say something that describes a category as a whole, must necessarily apply to a component. But if you say "God is all things", then you're not saying that B is a component of category A, you're saying that A = B, so B = A.

A world without suffering would be fucking pointless. It's like playing vidya with cheats on. Suffering gives meaning to actions and successfully rising above it is one of the best things possible

Sure. By definition, I am the highest and most good form of existence, so I am never bored or lonely or tired or sad or anything negative at all. Thus, there is no need for anything to ever change, be created, or thrown into Hell. If your next question was to somehow force me to create a universe by some sophistry, then I'll head you off at the pass by saying I create and infinite number of beings exactly like myself, totally incapable of any kind of suffering.

If that's the case then it's God's fault people suffer, sin, and go to Hell, not humanity's. All that free will malarky goes right out the window. If this is the way God wanted it, why do some suffer more and others less? Why not have everyone suffer just enough to make it fun, like a hard video game? Why birth defects and cancer and sociopaths?

Based. In order to actually win something you need to be able to lose it. If you can't lose it, then you can't win it.

Death is terrifying and nobody really wants this to be the answer.

Scholastics nigga

I'm not propping up a strawman; if anything, my line of reasoning improves upon Christianity and brings it closer to its metaphysical origins. The Abrahamic faiths are all just retarded bastardizations of Zoroastrianism, which did not suffer from the problem of evil because it was dualistic and argued for the existence of both a good God and an evil God. My concept of God as a morally dualistic ultimately impersonal and incomprehensible entity is merely expanding upon that particular line of reasoning.

Attached: b8f2cea5d0c3438cab4dc0f0c0021194.jpg (218x300, 26K)

>God made Man in his image
>Man wages war, rapes, steals, murders

It's pretty fucking evident that God is a dick to anyone who has read the Old Testament and we were modeled after that guy. 1+1=2

Also, it's really implausible that life is supposed to be some sort of test when so many humans throughout history and even in recent times died before they could walk.

Consider for instance the Harlequin baby. Born in a terrible state, doomed to die within a few days; what test could this creature possibly be experiencing? How is its character being testing in living a few short days of agony and dying?

I'm not even opposed to the idea that surmounting suffering is a good and noble thing for a human to do in their lifetime, or that people find meaning through overcoming difficulty (it seems plainly obvious to me that people do find meaning through that), I just don't see how it implies the existence of a God at all.

>I am the highest and most good form of existence
How has this been demonstrated if you have not yet created anything? What does it mean to be good? In my opinion, the good is that which tends to existence. For example, food is good because it tends to humans existence. A serial killer is evil because he tends to human non existence. For God to be good, He must excel at his job, and his job is literally to exist. He is that Something which prevents the contradictory existence of non existence. But His existence necessarily includes all kinds of forms of existence, including the subjective good and evil that humans and many other organisms experience.

>Then He is malevolent
See that's where this falls apart. God lets people pray to him for help when problems arise.
>argued for the existence of both a good God and an evil God
what is Satan?

>God lets people pray to him for help when problems arise.
yeah, and then does fuck all.

This is just the "god is everything" line with a little extra bullshit on top. We already have name for that theory and it's the Many Worlds hypothesis. Everything that can exist does exist is some parallel dimension, no God required. Besides, the God you describe could not possibly have a personality like the Christian God does.

To take another line of thought, God must be a perfect creator. To be a perfect creator, his creations must be themselves perfect. Since humans are imperfect, they were not created by God. My universe of infinite Gods experiencing Infinite joy is a better but still not great stab at the same idea.

>One man can't really destroy a religion
Why not

>t. I don't know what all powerful means

>what is Satan?

The idea that an all-powerful God can't seem to put the kibosh on Ol' Scratch is basically a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon in the making. I like to think that when God hurls his thunderbolts down at Hell, Satan catches the lightning bolt with his trident and then shoves it up God's old backside.

>god lets people pray to him
Yeah, so do I, and I do exactly as much as your god. Maybe you should worship me instead?

>what is Satan?
Jews/Christians/Muslims do not argue that the Devil is God's equal the way Zoroastrians do; Zoroastrians literally view God as having two distinct but equally powerful aspects.

Attached: 7186e9fe96884c3c61b9fb6a0c7bfc7d.jpg (640x800, 115K)

>To be a perfect creator, his creations must be themselves perfect
So a perfect creator is incapable of creating imperfect creatures? Where are you getting this logic from? Is God unable to produce a religion like Christianity?

>gnosticism
fuck off you little dick cunt

The ones that suffer the most have the greatest opportunity out of all of us. They have a chance to come face to face with the harshness of reality and ascend in spite of it. Those of us born with every comfort imaginable are more susceptible to degenerate into stinking, pitiable excuses for human beings, and the comforts afforded to us by our fathers ironically become our greatest enemy.

>Why not have everyone suffer just enough to make it fun, like a hard video game?
Even in video games, beating the hardest difficulty is more prestigious that running it on normal

I never said that life is supposed to be a test. Why do you see suffering as so bad? It's neither good or bad, it's a necessity

So the two conflicting ideas here are:

>a perfect creator should be able to create anything shitty
>a perfect creator wouldn't be able to create anything shitty

I can actually see where you're coming from on this one, but it's not enough to save God. See, God isn't just a perfect creator, he's a perfect in every capacity.

So the question I ask you is, what benefit could a perfect being gain from creating an imperfect being that is also loving and morally just.

Romans 9 contradicts free will

>All God had to say was "Don't listen to talking snakes" and the world would have been perfect forever.
consider this: God is an abusive parent and the snake gave humanity the gift of knowledge

>Adam and Eve chose to disobey God's commands. The snake smooth-talked them, but ultimately it was their choice. They sinned, and death is the punishment.
If they didn't have the knowledge of good and evil, how would Adam and Eve know that it was wrong to disobey God and eat the fruit?

>then whence cometh evil
From man, you antiquated retard

>The ones that suffer the most have the greatest opportunity out of all of us.

If I throw you out of a plane and tell you this is a great opportunity to learn to fly, am I perfectly loving to you in that moment?

>They have a chance to come face to face with the harshness of reality and ascend in spite of it.

So what do they get a special pity party in Heaven? Is there a VIP room where you're forced to suck God off slightly less? They did not volunteer for this. A child who is abused, neglected, and grows up without hearing the Good Word before dying a pitiable death at an early age has given glory to God in what way, exactly?

>Those of us born with every comfort imaginable are more susceptible to degenerate into stinking, pitiable excuses for human beings, and the comforts afforded to us by our fathers ironically become our greatest enemy.

So, wait, God knowingly puts some souls at greater risk of eternal damnation than others? Why? Is there a lottery? Are the unborn spirits quivering in the Guf, hoping they don't get into wealth and power? The mythology that has to exist to support your implications is insane.

>Even in video games, beating the hardest difficulty is more prestigious that running it on normal

Who cares about prestige? This is their fucking life. Their one and only fucking life, and it some cases, their afterlife as well. All dictated by the unquestionable whims of God, a carnival of pain for his amusement, and at his side those blessed Saints who were born into just the right amount of poverty in the right part of the world at the right time.

>Why do you see suffering as so bad? It's neither good or bad,

If the word bad has any meaning at all, it applies to human suffering. This is one of those points of philosophical bedrock; you can try to tell me that suffering isn't bad if you want, but you'll be paddling up a creek, and I'll still be waiting to hear why an omnipotent God couldn't just make me happy all the time.

>what benefit could a perfect being gain from creating an imperfect being
As I said before, it is a necessary creation to display His omnipotence. But also, we humans have consciousness, and we can turn our consciousness to God, or away from Him. We can suffer without Him or have Rest with Him. Either way, our perception of God, or the lack thereof, helps define His existence even further, by showing God what it is like to be other than Himself. Without creations, God simply is not God. Yes, evil exists because God wants it to. I will still worship God because that is more meaningful, and offers much more consolation than the material world. I accept this reality as something coherent and beneficial to God.

Why should God desire all his creations to be happy all the time? You are thinking from a human perspective.

Why does he have to display his omnipotence? Imagine being all-powerful, yet so insecure you still feel the need to create intelligent being and then condemn them to die just so you can flex your metaphorical muscles.

>From man
and who created man?

>consider this: God is an abusive parent and the snake gave humanity the gift of knowledge

How's your O9A initiations coming along there, bud? You do the murder one yet? Or are you Temple of Set, I always get you guys mixed up.

What other possible perspective is there? We are made in His image, after all.

A being that wanted to make something with its own powers.

Because in order for humans to have free will they must be able to choose between good and bad. Thus evil must exist.

Attached: 1538110082870.jpg (597x892, 771K)

A good bit of speculation, but how do you know that's what happened rather than something else?

evil must be allowed to exist, there must be balance, there has to be opposites otherwise everything would be even more meaningless than it already is

A personal relationship with God through diminishment of egoism and increased altruism combined with prayer.
The universe gets fucking weird.

fpbp

you cant rationalize someone out of faith, sometimes you can if they hadnt considered it before which is why its possible to make a theist into an athiest. Its nigh impossible to convert an athiest into a theist as there arent rational explanations of theism that work. I think the best solution is to let the differing people remain, and to not try to convert anyone from theism to atheism or vice versa. The core values of why they believe or dont believe are different.

Beep, beep set theory here. Let's assume set A = {1, 2, 3, 4}. Now it doesn't mean that 1 = A. Now let's say that God is a set containing every other object. This way God is a combination of everything else and by definition God is also a God. Does it mean that a single other object is God? No. "By our powers combined" and shit.

Attached: by-your-powers-combined-i-am-captain-planet[1].jpg (480x390, 161K)

If you choose between two good things is it not a choice anymore? If you can choose, do you not have a free will?

God is, by definition, omnipotent. To not display, as it is called, this feature would mean that he is not God. It is necessary.
>what other perspective is there?
You know the answer to that question.
>his image
Are you really using that line to make humans and God the same? Do you think such a verse is false because we live on Earth and God does not? Is your only argument a snarky misinterpretation of the creation myth?

Then he is not all knowing or all powerful. If he made us and everything about us, he is responsible for evil as all existence is an extension of his will. Thusly he willed lucifer to rebel and is responsible for every good and evil unless he is not all knowing or all powerful. This is a pointless discussion and its been done to death, there is no rationalization of god. Theres only faith, so stick to that.

I think about this a lot. Problems can be solved without money just by talking to the right person. You can get anything that you want for free, too. It's as if we all need each other like the parts of one body.

God is able to prevent evil, but not always willing - not because of malevolence but because of knowledge of the side effects it would have.

We have no free will. Everything happens for God, by God. We can either become one with God, or be separated from Him. It is as if you think religion is its own entity, separate from the other technicalities of existence. It is all woven together beautifully, but you are too arrogant and prideful to accept it.

>invent reality
>invent humanity
>should be able to be the authority on everything right?
>first thing they do is deceive you
>ingrateful shits kill your son
>make a deal that they still have a chance to visit your sweet cloud land after death only if they admit they're cunts
>they ignore it because they just want to cum all day and blame all their miniscule problems on you
>tfw to intelligent

>If I throw you out of a plane and tell you this is a great opportunity to learn to fly, am I perfectly loving to you in that moment?
Reductio ad absurdum

>all these emotional appeals about suffering people
Let me take God out of the picture, I haven't even mentioned Him in my posts. I'll reiterate my point: Suffering is an absolutely necessary part of being human, and a lack of it results in a catastrophic loss of meaning

I don't know what O9A is. I just read genesis recently and couldn't help but notice that God acts a lot like an emotionally abusive parent - wanting to keep humanity ignorant, subservient, etc.

strong lol at believing some sand rubbed some other sediment mixed with gas and all of this came out of it

strong lol

atheists