*** Logical reason of atheism ***

   You'd have to demonstrate that. Certainly the cultures in which all modern religions were formed were not strangers to suffering. We can't go on as though evil in the world is something that modern philosophers discovered, and primitive mystics never caught on to.  As far as I can tell, the idea that A Good God = A God who doesn't let anything bad happen to anyone ever is a modern invention. 

Can you give me other examples of personal ideas that aren’t public objects? To me, this sounds perilously close to a presumption of atheism, and if the assumption is that God doesn’t exist right off the bat, then the Problem of Evil is neither here nor there. I think most theists would argue that God IS a public object, like an elephant.

Well, this is a sound defeater for benevolent pantheism, if there ever was one! It seems you've shown that the Problem of evil is quite sufficient in defeating a God who is the only Power there is, and who is furthermore a private entity with presumably no power whatsoever. You've created omarism, and them defeated it just as quickly. This, by the way, is another problem with atheism- one has to create a concept of God, and then destroy it. To be a strong atheist, one has to develop the strongest theistic position they can (and then refute it), which means the proper atheist spends his time in much the same way as the proper theist. 
 What might be more interesting, though, is how the Problem of Evil relates to theism as most theists see it- with God being the Most Powerful, but not the only powerful, an external Being quite distinct and independant from His creation.  

Fine. As I said, so defined the best you can argue is that God Himself cannot be both X and non-X. You have no grounds to argue that if God is X, there can be no such thing as Non-X at all. Again, unless you are a pantheist.

 Maybe they do, and maybe they don't. That a greater good can arise from a lesser evil seems easy to demonstrate. That it doesn't [i]always[/i] turn out that way seems equally easy. Either way, you cannot quantify how much good is in the world, and compare it to how much evil there is. 

It is subjective only insofar as a person refuses to see it any other way. If taken objectively, the problem of evil fails- unless, like I said, the point of it is to elicit a certain emotional response, in which case I suppose it does quite well from time to time.
Lastly:

oreso:

Who says that they don’t? What do you mean by force? I look around, and see tons of people who have been convinced (in one direction or the other) by all the (a)theistic arguments out there.

Yea. . . but the flip side is that no matter how hard you try you can’t argue something out of existence.

Exactly why arguments without evidence are meaningless.

I don’t agree, because you can argue for the logical possibilty of existence without evidence.

As you can with purple people eaters and giant spagetti monsters. Without any evidence of such things postulating about them is meaningless

The problem of Evil leads to feelings that there is not a God, for It goes against the accepted ideas of the Deity.

You’d have to demonstrate that.
O- What do you want? A post from a non-believer, or a non-christian?

Certainly the cultures in which all modern religions were formed were not strangers to suffering.
O- Indeed not, but was their suffering meaningless? And if it was not meaningless, if it had a purpose, did that condition not ameliorate their suferance?

We can’t go on as though evil in the world is something that modern philosophers discovered, and primitive mystics never caught on to. As far as I can tell, the idea that A Good God = A God who doesn’t let anything bad happen to anyone ever is a modern invention.
O- I have already agreed that suffering is not alien to the Ancients, but the Problem of Evil was realized not in the 18th or 19th century, but was presented in it’s current form by Epicurus, who is no modern. Job puts forth the predicament of the ancients:" He destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent." What is so different between the ancient and the modern? The ancient suffered what he had to suffer. As Toqueville puts it:“…it is not always when things are going from bad to worse, that revolutions break out. On the contrary, it oftener happens that when a people which has put up with an oppressive rule over a long period without protest suddenly finds the goverment relaxing it’s pressure it takes up arms against it.” Sure he was talking about earthly goverments and political revolutions but we must not forget that Atheism is a revolution against God. Ecclesiastes could affirm that all is “Meaningless” and that for the wise and the fool, “the same fate overtakes them both.” With him as with Job the King was king. “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?”
The revolution, the enlightement, did away with that sense of awe. Where once God could bring good or bad, now he was constricted to provide only good. Where once a single fate overtook wise and fools, now you had distinctions made in the afterlife. This was a world full of meaning and ruled by logic and reason, and because of this, a God who would “mock the despair of the innocent” became no-God.

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And because God is a personal idea, not a public object, like an elephant, the feeling dictates Being.

Can you give me other examples of personal ideas that aren’t public objects?
O- Justice, beauty and love.

To me, this sounds perilously close to a presumption of atheism, and if the assumption is that God doesn’t exist right off the bat
O- I never said that X does not exist but that it cannot be consistent with certain attributes dictated by dogma.

then the Problem of Evil is neither here nor there. I think most theists would argue that God IS a public object, like an elephant.
O- Then I should be able to ask what I would ask about the elephant in the middle of the room: How tall is God? How much does He weight? What is his sex? We address Him as a male, so does He have a penis? What color is God? I look forward to the valid answers of a public object, i.e. God.

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If God is the Whole sum, the only power, all-powerful, then there is no-thing else, no other power, no lesser power, for then God’s power would not be the whole but only the greater part of power, but He is All, all-powerful.

It seems you’ve shown that the Problem of evil is quite sufficient in defeating a God who is the only Power there is, and who is furthermore a private entity with presumably no power whatsoever. You’ve created omarism, and them defeated it just as quickly.
O- Have I? If you mean this, then you have misunderstood the whole premise. Is God OMNI- potent? Is God OMNI-benevolent? Now what is the definition of “OMNI”? It is not “Most”, but “All”. If I am still unclear to you, then perhaps, on this point, we shall never agree.

This, by the way, is another problem with atheism- one has to create a concept of God
O- A Straw-God-argument? But Is not God Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent? That are the requirements for the argument and lucky for me, requirements that form part of any worthy concept of God, and Christians in particular since a synonym of that is El-Shaddai.

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It is as easy as defining Good as the absense of Evil and Evil as an absense of Good, which is by the way that many theologians have in the past.

Fine. As I said, so defined the best you can argue is that God Himself cannot be both X and non-X. You have no grounds to argue that if God is X, there can be no such thing as Non-X at all. Again, unless you are a pantheist.
O- So, you are saying that I cannot argue that “God is all-good and also non good, or evil”? True, but that is Job’s argument. Job says what any ancient could tell you: He destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent.". Eccl. adds:“When times are good be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.” Did the Lord not say to Isaiah himself in his book that:“I am the Lord, and there is no other. I FORM THE LIGHT AND CREATE THE DARKNESS, I BRING PROSPERITY AND CREATE DISASTER”. I hope my point is clear.

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As it is, the POE is subjective, created and resolved withing the mind of a person.

It is subjective only insofar as a person refuses to see it any other way.
O- And that, my friend, is the point of Faith.

If taken objectively, the problem of evil fails
O- The POE is subjective. Job cannot prove to his listeners his innocence. Evil occurs only as an injustice and in Job’s case, he had reason to feel wronged.(Of course, in the Bible we find objectively what was to Job’s friends a mystery). We cannot agree on the nature of evil either, as that is a subjective judgement. The definitions must be very exact and must be agreed upon for the discussion to advance. I can advance, propose, definitions and experiences but if not accepted, I cannot point at “evil” and say:“there it is”.
To humble, to punish, to instruct! Faith can lead you and others to accept one or all three and void Evil, for again, evil is a subjective judgement, not a public fact; but once agreed upon, once we agree on the meaning of it, or judge it, which is the same, as unacceptable, for we find ourselves as blameless as Job, and exalt ourselves (and who knows but God who is blameless), then we ask “Why?” It becomes then a POE, not before and certainly, not at all objectively.
But whether we argue for the illusion of evil because God was just in humbling us, punishing us, or instructing us, we create a framework which limits God’s soveirngty. Could God simply choose to unjustly torment? Job’s friends argued for the goodness of God, yet they did not do justice for God in their defense.
The true answer to Job’s question was void of logic and reason. God asked the questions and humbled Job who saw and was satisfied and repented. It was not his reason and logic, theology and philosophy, but his sight and his inability to answer God.
Sometimes it does feel that as of late God is without mystery. Authors like Lee Strobel write books about the Case for Faith or the Case for Christ etc. I feel they are no better than Job’s friends, lawyers for Him who needs no defense except in confront of those who have faith in their reason alone and hog-tie God, trample His name, into a concept small enough that can fit within their vanity.
You take me for an atheist. Why? Because I have left the door open to disbelief? Because my faith hinges on questions rather than answers? Yet I feel my faith stronger in my doubt than in the serenity of an idol. That is the condition we now find belief. So refined is the concept of God, so precise to be almost math, but make no mistake and take the concept as object…an elephant; you would compare God to an elephant. Worry tremble and defend God; warp Him, It or She into circles that fit in the circle of your mind. Exalt your vanity and rivet His chains. Though you were created in the image of God you deny this God any Freewill.
Wretched is His state, unable to use as He wills, unjustly even, His own creation.
Omnipotent, only as long as it is profitable and advantageous for man. “God need only be Omni- to secure my well-being.”

Well, yes: It’s that error in perspective, in part, that makes the Problem of Evil more potent than it should be. When one understands God to be a cosmic crimefighter, or a ethereal suger-daddy, then it makes no sense that bad things happen in this world, when they could presumably have been prevented. If I take you right, you’re argument has been that the Problem of Evil works because it flies in the face of how the devout must see God. What I’m saying is, throughout history, only the blind or the elite could have ever seen Him that way.

How tall is a breeze? How much does a beam of sunlight weigh? What sex is a tree? These things aren't public objects either? Certainly I don't need to explain to you the commonly-held theistic view of God. He's not a tangible Being (i.e., not made up of matter), but he's a public Being in the sense that many people can experience the same God, and He exists outside of anybody's mind. That's theism, anyways. 

I'm not sure what place Etymology has in this discussion, but the fact is still that Christians consider God to be All-Powerful, and at the same time consider Him distinct from his creation- if pressed, I'm sure most Christians would grant that people, the Devil, and bumblebees all have [i]some[/i] power of their own, unless they are hardcore determinists.   If you want to argue that that's irrational, I suppose you can, but in the [i]meantime[/i] there is so explicit logical contradiction between "God is all-good" and "The world has some evil in it" unless you equate God with the world, in which case you're dealing with something other than traditional theism. 

The point I see to all this is that the Problem of Evil is a bigger problem for people living more comfortable lives.

No, because you said God was a personal idea  like justice or love. Any atheist with sense is quick to agree that God exists [i]in people mind's[/i].  The atheist disbelieves in the sort of God who creates the universe and parts the Red Sea and such. Maybe I'm unclear on your usage of public and private still, so I'll ask another question: can a personal idea that isn't a public object create the Universe? 

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How tall is a breeze? How much does a beam of sunlight weigh? What sex is a tree? These things aren’t public objects either? Certainly I don’t need to explain to you the commonly-held theistic view of God. He’s not a tangible Being (i.e., not made up of matter), but he’s a public Being in the sense that many people can experience the same God, and He exists outside of anybody’s mind. That’s theism, anyways.
O- First you say that: “I think most theists would argue that God IS a public object, like an elephant.” Now he is a breeze, sunlight and a tree? Can I ask then what is the velocity of God? What is the temperature of God? and again, in the analogy to a tree, How tall is God? These are public things which can be measured and discussed equally by Muslims, Jews and Christians. Because God is a concept of mind to our religions all differ in their ideas of God and cannot agree. Even amongst Christian the truth is that Baptists, for example, consider other denominations of Christians as atheists or heretics, such as Jehova Witness. I understand the point you are trying to present which is that God, to be God must exist outside of you, because Creature and Creator must be dicernible. But my point is that when you arrive to religion, whatever experience you had is not guaranteed to match those of others, and not because they are blind or an elite but because “God” has not been a public object to men since the days of Abram and Adam.
Now, you might ask about Jesus.
In Jesus, we are supposed to have God made flesh, do we not? How much more public must we get? Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas and Peter can all agree on what is a breeze, sunlight and a tree…even an elephant! But does it follow that they agree that Jesus was God? Therefore is God/Jesus a concept within the mind or an external object? The one requirement I place upon an external, or public object, such as a table, breeze, sunlight, is that it be equally perceptible to equally perceptible people. It is a matter of the senses rather than their mind, but what we find is equally disposed people. If God was like a tree, like the breeze, like the sunlight, like an elephant, then we would not have several religions but only one; not several sacred books but one, not four gospels but one…it would not be a question settled between Jerusalem and Antioch, or Alexandria and Rome, since no Creed is needed to recognize breezes and sunlight. One can differ in the name, but agree about what we are pointing to. You do not have that in religions.

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Have I? If you mean this, then you have misunderstood the whole premise. Is God OMNI- potent? Is God OMNI-benevolent? Now what is the definition of “OMNI”? It is not “Most”, but “All”.

I’m not sure what place Etymology has in this discussion, but the fact is still that Christians consider God to be All-Powerful, and at the same time consider Him distinct from his creation- if pressed, I’m sure most Christians would grant that people, the Devil, and bumblebees all have some power of their own, unless they are hardcore determinists.
O- Yes, but not man, nor Devil exist but by the grace of God, by the choice made by God, therefore God is the direct cause of man and Devil and why I agree with the ancients who then recognized Who brought Good as well as Evil.

If you want to argue that that’s irrational, I suppose you can, but in the meantime there is so explicit logical contradiction between “God is all-good” and “The world has some evil in it” unless you equate God with the world, in which case you’re dealing with something other than traditional theism.
O- 1) God is all-good.
2) The world has some evil in it.
No problem.
Obvoiusly God means well but cannot do it all.
But the POE is not that.
1) God is all-good.
2) God is all-powerful.
3) The world has some evil in it.
Now there is a problem. God means well, can do it all, but the Earth is not Heaven? That is the gist of the problem and it’s solution implied within. The problem exist only if you accept this world as all there will ever be. If this was all, then we find no justice, but if we add Heaven, then problem ends because the scales are defered to a future time and another plane of existence. Of course, the question still remains, why Heaven? Why not now and here and which can only be answered by a God.

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I FORM THE LIGHT AND CREATE THE DARKNESS, I BRING PROSPERITY AND CREATE DISASTER". I hope my point is clear.

The point I see to all this is that the Problem of Evil is a bigger problem for people living more comfortable lives.
O- Why is that? In fact the opposite is true. If I am doing comfortable, what do I know about suffering and evil?

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You take me for an atheist. Why? Because I have left the door open to disbelief? Because my faith hinges on questions rather than answers?

No, because you said God was a personal idea like justice or love.
O- I never denied that there can be something out there that appears to people like Paul and Moses, just like I cannot deny that aliens have appeared to people or ghosts or unicorns. My contention is that God, as held in dogma, and because is part of a dogma, is not an external object but a concept within a system of though that is independent of reality.

Any atheist with sense is quick to agree that God exists in people mind’s.
O- Yes. Yet the atheist shares one quality with the average theist: He is discussing the literary character “God” as found in scripture. They are disposed to discuss what is found in scriptures, not what is found as a breeze, like a tree or like an elephant. You follow me? Both the atheist and theist are waiting for Godot. There is no public object. They are not discussing the reality or existence of rain, sunlight, or elephants, but whether the scriptures that name God or gods, are fiction or non-fiction.
I find that you divide both prematurely. A both are the same; it it just that one of them goes one god further.
The christian savagely attacks the muslim theist. Does Allah exist?

Maybe I’m unclear on your usage of public and private still, so I’ll ask another question: can a personal idea that isn’t a public object create the Universe?
O- Is the Big Bang public object? No; it is a theory, a personal idea. But it might just be what created the universe. Is Evolution a public object? No. We cannot point at it and say that is evolution. It is a theory, a personal idea that some believe but not all and even those who believe can disagree as to what exactly is the reality of the theory, upon which they agree. Thus, Gould accepts the theory, the idea, but not in the same way that Dawkins would. Likewise, the Muslim and Christian agree on the theory, theism, but disagree on the idea, between Allah and Jesus Christ.
A personal idea, in this sense, could in fact be said to be the reality and cause of X, i.e. Creation, Species, Universe, but is not demonstrable, as far as I know; none saw the Big Bang, none saw a reptile become warm blooded or God speaking creation into existence. People theorize that this is what indeed happened, but the former depends on mathematical assumptions the kind of which a sceptic like Nietzsche would destroy. Evolution upon generalizations and the last upon revelation, which counts as much as word of mouth. If I were to critically select one religion from another, what would be my criteria?
If you tell me that the truth is that God created the earth in seven days, I could ask:“How do you know?” What would be your answer? What method to discover truth would you give? “Well, I looked it up in Genesis”
Suddenly some other “theist” rises up and says that it took fourteen days (I am making this one up). I ask the same question. He says he looked it up in Orontala (making this up).
Now isn’t that a pickle?!

 What is the problem here, that we have to beat around the bush? I'm assuming you know as well as I do that way God is thought of in traditional theism. He doesn't have a weight, or a height, or any of that stuff, but at the same time he's not merely an idea existing in a person's mind- He has a mind of His own, Has power to do things like create the world and such.  If you have a problem with the way God is traditionally thought of, tell me what it is, and we can examine it. But don't ask me how tall He is. 

 But people have different experiences of all sorts of public objects. You could visit a country that I've visited, and I could love it or you hate it. You could have a completely different opinion of my relatives than you do.  This sort of thing is especially prominent when dealing with [i]people[/i]- and theism asserts that God is a person. Now, what man deals with most of the time is not God, but his own ideas of God. But unless you are an atheist, you acknowledge that the two things are distinct. 

You could say the exact same thing about the current President of the United States, just by replacing "God" with "good leader" or "intelligent" or "capable". Now, to a [i]degree[/i] you could say that things like intelligence or capability are not public objects, but it's the baggage that the observers bring to their observation that creates such a diversity of viewpoints. 

   I completely disagree with this, and the reason is very straightforward- Religion tells us how to live our lives, and therefore, there will never be resolution.  The example I have compared it to is nutrition. Human bodies are public objects, yes? And food as well? Therefore, there should only be one best way to eat, right? Of course not- because nutrition/religion tells people not to do things they may want to do, and to do things that they may NOT want to do, all of the sudden it's oh-so-complex. Today eggs are good for you, next week they are bad again. In the 19th Century, monotheism was the only way to be, in the 21st monotheism is oppressive and it's all about the New Age. That's our fault, and says nothing about the nature of God, other than what we may learn from the fact that He created us like this. 

 I agree that God has brought the Good as well as the Evil- as far as I can tell, there was nothing but Him until He decided that there should be stuff.  In His wisdom, he must have known that there would be Evil in the world He set up, whether or not you are a determinist. I think that any successful theodicy has to take into account that God created a world that He knew would have Evil in it. That's why I'm not a process theologian. 

 Like I've said before, you need a 4th premise, one to the effect of 

4. An all-good being will do everything in it’s power to prevent evil in every case.
   You seem to agree with me, because you go on to say

Implying that the God you’ve set up in 1 and 2 is obligated to create Heaven (a world without evil, I take you to mean). That’s the gist of 4, and it needs to be a premise, because it’s not self-evident from 1 and 2 taken together. That presmise 4 is what things like the Free Will defense and other theodicies attack: “God allows there to be evil because…”

 You know about suffering and evil because someone cussed at you at work, or because you stubbed your toe.  What I mean is, somebody that suffers horribly everyday (by modern standards, such as a medival peasant) could not even think of "God" without acknowledging that he created a world of suffering- if they managed to believe at all, it seems to me that the Problem of Evil would be less shocking or problematic. It is modern, comfortable people who can live out most of their lives thinking of God as a benevolent omni-santa, and then become distraught when they realize someone in the world might be hungry or cold- or Heaven forbid, something bad actually happens to [i]them[/i]. 

I sort of follow you, sort of not. It is true that the theist and atheist are both caught up arguing over Scriptures and discussing man’s concept of God. However, to say that they are not discussing “what is found as a breeze, like a tree or like an elephant” sounds to be like a presumption of atheism. Isn’t the very thing the (a)theists are arguing about whether or not God is like an elephant in the relevant way? In other words, the atheist would agree with you that neither of them is discussing a public object, the theist would insist that they are.

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First you say that: “I think most theists would argue that God IS a public object, like an elephant.” Now he is a breeze, sunlight and a tree?

He doesn’t have a weight, or a height, or any of that stuff, but at the same time he’s not merely an idea existing in a person’s mind- He has a mind of His own, Has power to do things like create the world and such. If you have a problem with the way God is traditionally thought of, tell me what it is, and we can examine it. But don’t ask me how tall He is.
O- If God has no weight, or height, mass, velocity or anything that can be found in public objects such as air, trees and light, then the analogy is weak, if not impossible. That was the point. You compare God with things when God is no-thing. I understand, again, the importance given to God rest on his being outside of us as a force that creates the universe and can save us. How can we be saved by a figment of the imagination?
But nonetheless, if we discuss God logically, scientifically, rationally, we perform the equivalent of splashing acid onto a work of art.
God might well exist, as well as unicorns and Sasquash; but God is a theory, or an idea within a theory. For example, you say that God was the creator. You imply as a done fact that the universe WAS indeed created. Why can’t the universe be eternal? I see no reason. Can anything be eternal; to have existed in one way or another without a begining nor an end? That is what God is. So it is possible, so it would seem. The only objection is that if we negate the attribute in nature that we can affirm it in God later. The theory is then expressed like this.
A) God is eternal and created the universe.
And is contrasted by:
B) The universe is eternal and God was created.
In both we lack any conclusive facts. Let’s wait for Godot. Ahh, but that is the hard part.
I could say:“God exist”. But that is not enough. God existing is useless in itself. I could say that Planet X exists. I don’t even need to see it. But belief in Planet X does not belong to a system (It is by physics that we know of Planet X, and such belief in it comes with a belief in the efficacy of science in helping us map the sky, but the positional location posited is useful in itself. The only analogy I can give is in saying that God exists, we base the belief in the belief that the universe can be known. Omar) , while belief in God does. It must be followed with belief in a set of writings that describe our friend in the sky. It is because of this that I say the obvious-- that God, within a religion, secured not by eyes or ears but by faith, by imagination, by the belief in the infallibility of a story-telling book, is and can only be an object of the mind. It is not always like this. For Abram, for Moses, God was an object. Now I say to you: If God is like a bright light, and you saw a bright light, well then, what did you see? God himself or a simple bright light? This is the problem of empiricism. But in any case, the day I have a vision and talk to God, I suppose I will know what I am experiencing. Until that day my faith is a simple maybe.

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But my point is that when you arrive to religion, whatever experience you had is not guaranteed to match those of others, and not because they are blind or an elite but because “God” has not been a public object to men since the days of Abram and Adam.

But people have different experiences of all sorts of public objects. You could visit a country that I’ve visited, and I could love it or you hate it.
O- But we would not disagree about the country we either love or hate. Religions disagree about God himself. The question that can explain this:“Is Jesus Christ God?” or “Does God have a begotten Son?” You’ll find, that unlike question about whether one likes or hates Italy, “Italy” has a specific value that God lacks, even within the montheistic faiths. For Petey’s sake, they cannot even agree on the name!

Now, what man deals with most of the time is not God, but his own ideas of God. But unless you are an atheist, you acknowledge that the two things are distinct.
O- Like I said, if we are talking about religion which to me counts as most of the times man deals with God, then we are talking less, much less, about the experiences of God than the ideas of and about God. We are not simply discussing whether God exists and nothing more. Even Aristotle could agree, but the Unmovable Mover is not a Saviour, is IT?

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If God was like a tree, like the breeze, like the sunlight, like an elephant, then we would not have several religions but only one; not several sacred books but one, not four gospels but one…

Religion tells us how to live our lives, and therefore, there will never be resolution.
O- Then see it like me. These religions are formulas, theories and at worst, opinions about how to live our life and in which God is needed as one may need a spear or sword by which to enforce the prejudices of the few. God is an idea within the theory. And because the theories disagree, the ingredients , myths and Gods within must necessarly also.

The example I have compared it to is nutrition. Human bodies are public objects, yes? And food as well? Therefore, there should only be one best way to eat, right?
O- No, and you are being very forgiving here in your analogy, but I shall accomodate it within the discussion. What is the point of nutrition? A healthy body. But can we agree on just what a healthy body should be? There is before us a slender body but for some it is suffering from malnutrition while to the other it’s the poster body for a healthy nutrition. It is not a bad analogy considering that there is not one book, telling you what to eat, but hundreds and each telling you to eat something differently. Yet, one glaring difference is that nutritionists might disagree on the method, but agree on the singularity of the aim. A nutritionist can critique another nutritionist without declaring the other one a non-nutritionist.
In religion, one declares the others false and it’s authors madmen. There is a Tyranny that is perhaps wrong.

Implying that the God you’ve set up in 1 and 2 is obligated to create Heaven (a world without evil, I take you to mean). That’s the gist of 4, and it needs to be a premise, because it’s not self-evident from 1 and 2 taken together. That presmise 4 is what things like the Free Will defense and other theodicies attack: “God allows there to be evil because…”
O- Let the heads roll. It is not just that God allows evil; as we see in the ancients God “create(s)” evil and darkness. Now, not why, but How can a merciful God create evil? Is like asking: How can we think of Mother Teresa dipping newborns in boiling oil or smashing their heads against the rocks? I am sorry for the image, but that is extreme enough not be a relative reference to what we could call an Evil.
Let’s get back to Job. Why does God allow Satan to kill Job’s children? God already knows the measure of Job’s character…and for that matter the Devil…so He knew what would happen. Perhaps He wanted to prove Satan wrong, but God then is sacrificing the pearl of Job for the biggest Pig there is? Is this consistent? Can we truly say that God is Good then? Suppose you followed God’s example and tested the loyalty of a protege to convince one of your enemies of his faithfulness; would we call you “good”? Another question is:" Can something be good which does not seek our well-being?" This was Satan’s point and in which he is right, because after all, though He did not curse God, Job was pretty mad, not so much from the point of view of an observer, as he watched more calm the passing of his wealth and children, but more agitated by his own person being afflicted. His well-being was assaulted. Why do people worship God?, is the question. Because he created all? Not really. God liberates, defends, defeats enemies, kill enemies, saves from death, punishes the fools and saves the wise. It is in these actions that God adquires worth, in what He can Do For Us…and Satan saw that much.

You know about suffering and evil because someone cussed at you at work, or because you stubbed your toe. What I mean is, somebody that suffers horribly everyday (by modern standards, such as a medival peasant) could not even think of “God” without acknowledging that he created a world of suffering- if they managed to believe at all, it seems to me that the Problem of Evil would be less shocking or problematic.
O- We agree then in this way:
The problem of the righteous sufferer emerges with the evolution of the state goverment. The more brutal the age, the more brutal the God. The gentler, or more civilized man became, so did his God–which is another reason why we might suspect that God rather than being an independent object out-there is a dependent object within.

Quote:
They are disposed to discuss what is found in scriptures, not what is found as a breeze, like a tree or like an elephant. You follow me? Both the atheist and theist are waiting for Godot. There is no public object. They are not discussing the reality or existence of rain, sunlight, or elephants, but whether the scriptures that name God or gods, are fiction or non-fiction.

I sort of follow you, sort of not. It is true that the theist and atheist are both caught up arguing over Scriptures and discussing man’s concept of God.
O- I was expressing the debates within the faiths; but as I mentioned before, atheism is relative because a christian, for example, denies the existence of Allah.

However, to say that they are not discussing “what is found as a breeze, like a tree or like an elephant” sounds to be like a presumption of atheism. Isn’t the very thing the (a)theists are arguing about whether or not God is like an elephant in the relevant way? In other words, the atheist would agree with you that neither of them is discussing a public object, the theist would insist that they are.
O- To this we say:“Does Allah exist?” “Is the Koran inspired by God?”

Again, I still fail to see the point of this: We're still talking about things we both already know, as though you are waiting for me to reveal to you that God is immaterial.  But, to your point, God does have a number of properties in common with external objects (I don't use the word public here, and you'll see why in a moment). 
  For example, God (allegedy) knows things. He has aims. He possesses self-awareness, and there is such a thing as 'what it's like to be God'.  In other words, He posseses the qualities of a Mind. Now, a mind defies your classifications. It is not exactly a [i]public[/i] object, since a group of people cannot analyze a mind together. On the other hand it is not a personal idea either- I take it for granted that your mind is not a figment of my imagination. It is as external as a tree, even if I can only observe it indirectly. 

This sort of talk confuses me.  If God is a theory or an idea, then it without question exists- I know this because I myself have the idea, and hold the theory. But the notion that the God we consider is only a theory becomes false if you ask yourself the simple question- what does this theory [i]state[/i]? It states that there is an external Being like I discribe above that created the Universe. That postulated Being is [i]God[/i], and the theory has no use but to suggest there is such a thing as He. 

Do I? My points are twofold:

1. The Problem of Evil fails unless one equates God with the universe.

2. Theists hold that God is a real, external Being, just as individual humans are external to each other.

   Those points could have been just as well made by an atheist.

 You don't? Nothing we see in the universe is enternal, and as far as we can tell, everything we define as 'the universe' is going to come to an end we call heat death. As far as scientists can tell, everything we call the universe began a measureable amount of time ago. We know a great deal about nature, and enternity is not a property we can give it.  That is the big difference between saying God is enternal, and saying the Universe is enternal. 

You paint a view of religion that isn't true.  Having spent a lot of time in a religious community, I would say confidently that well over half of Christians can point to events in their lives they define as God answering prayer, God talking to them, or otherwise evidence of God's being in their life. I would say those experiences are equally important as 'belief in the infallibility of a story-telling book'.  In other words, there are a great many Abrahams and Moses' running around out there. 

   This is philosophy, after all. I'm sure you could find people on this very board that would disagree with you that there are such things as public objects at all, so what of it? Why believe that if God were just as the theists say He is, we would mostly or even somewhat agree about him? I see no evidence in life of that. Sure, if God were a great big guy sitting on a chair on a mountain, then we'd probably all agree about Him in certain respects. But nobody is asserting that- the versions of God which the Problem of Evil are leveled at are nothing like that. 

And there’s the problem about discussing whether God exists and nothing more. God could be my toaster if you refuse to make any statements about what God is like.

 And anything you propose would just be another one of them. For some reason, many spiritual folks have this notion that they can transcend the old ball and chain of "my theory is right and your theory is wrong" just by disagreeing with all the most popular forumulas. There's no way out of the game. 

   The problem with nutrition is not that people can't decide what 'healthy' is.  Define 'healthy' in some extremely simple, agreeable way like "Living past 65", and you will STILL get a thousands different conflicting ideas on the best diet to achieve that. 

Do I? In nutritious, one may declare other theories false, dangerous, and even life-threatening. It happens regularly. 

The first step is to stop comparing God to Mother Teresa. The second step is to realize, like the above, the only way to make the Problem of Evil work is to draw on heartstrings. It presents no contradiction. What's wrong with the Free Will defense?

This is neither here nor there. For the sake of argument, let's just say that the book of Job is a fiction and the things therein never happened.  Then where is your point? If I defended this, would you then parade some story from the Koran and expect me to defend that too? "Was the thing that God allegedly did in this allegedly holy book right or wrong?" is a completely other matter than the Problem of Evil itself. You'd be better served talking to a biblical scholar!

 Yes, this is an ever-present risk. How we view God changes according to our culture, there's no way to avoid it completely, but that's why things like Bibles are so important- the provide a bit of an anchor throughout time. But yes, I agree that the common view of God has become more gentle as society has changed. This makes the problem of evil worse. A classic example I myself have met, is the person who claims that "The God they know" would never ever allow there to be such a thing as hell, or condemn people 'just for not believing in Him' or punish people for their human failings. I often wonder how such a Dr. Spock of a God can possibility be consistant with the world I see on the evening news. 

A God who is agreed up front to “bring rain to the just and the wicked alike” may be less pleasent, but makes more sense in the long run.

Hi Uccisore,

There is only one thing wrong with this kind of argumentation; it is based on interpretation of human experience with the Mystery of God. The attributes you give God are assumptions which help transport another message – a mystical message, without words. That means that your description is of a medium between the Mystery and us, a figure that helps us understand the goodness and love that people who have had the mystical experience are trying to convey. In most cases it is the paradox that leads us to the truth about God, not a set of words. Words contradict, they are diversions, they only help us understand the contradiction of human life and in so doing, lead us to the paradox which is “God.”

This is where Christians, at least since Luther, Erasmus and Calvin, have been leading the world astray, forcing critics of Christianity to argue along lines that do not apply. If you like, the message is between the lines, waiting for an intuitive spirit to receive it. Why do you think the scholars and high-minded have failed to fathom the Gospel? Why do you think that genius has only produced cheap copies? Of course we need to know scripture, of course the ancient command to ponder over scripture day and night is right, but it isn’t on the surface or in the letters or the words that the truth is communicated, but by the spirit, between the lines.

Does “He” or “She” apply? This “Theory” is what Theology is to a great degree. Seeing as God can’t be put under a microscope or analysed, and communion with him is on a level we cannot reach in a rational sense, there is a lot of theory about God which is confused with the Mystery itself. No wonder then that no graven image was to be made, nor was his name to be used in vain – we have no idea. We only know that God is the One who says, “I AM THAT WHICH I AM.”

There is – it is called Spirituality. Instead of Piety ruling our church, we need spiritual leaders. It is the old problem of developing image or personality. We have even done away with structures that took the time for Spirituality; instead, we are suitably adapted to go well with those who need religion for their image. Spirituality isn’t something that is usually a movement of masses, at least not without having changed the society Christians live in. The most “popular” formulas lack depth; they lack spirituality as their source. Instead they are built on religious practise and tradition, but we need to personally dig deeper and that is where we find that the spirit brings people together and that “the mind of the Spirit is life and peace”. The alignment that true spirituality is, brings us in line with other spiritual people from other religions, who have equally been aligned by the paradox of mystical experience.

Like Parker J. Palmer wrote:
“The contradictions of life are not accidental. Nor do they result from inept living. They are inherent in human nature and in the circumstances which surround our lives. We are, as the Psalmist says, “little less than God” but also “like the beasts that perish” (Psalms 8:5 and 49:12). Our highest insights and aspirations fail because we are encumbered by flesh which is too weak — or too strong. When we rise to soar on wings of spirit, we discover weights of need and greed tied to our feet. The things we seek consciously and with effort tend to evade us, while our blessings come quietly and unbidden. When we achieve what we most want, our pleasure in it often fades.

These contradictions of private life are multiplied over and over when we enter the world of work and politics. Here are a thousand factions competing for scarce resources. Here is a realm where values cancel each other out: How, for example, can we simultaneously have freedom and equality? In this arena vision yields to compromise, the law of collective survival. This is a self-negating world where even our finest achievements often yield negative by-products: Medical science lengthens human life only to increase starvation in some societies and draw out the agonies of aging in others.

Beyond the private and the public realms are contradictions we might call cosmic, which implicate even God! These are the religious conundrums which have bedevilled men and women for millennia. Why do the wicked flourish while the virtuous wither? How can there be evil in the universe if God is loving, all-knowing, and omnipotent? At every level our lives are stretched and torn between opposites which seem irreconcilable, discouraging, defeating.

Thomas Merton has helped me understand that the way we respond to contradiction is pivotal to our spiritual lives. The points at which we meet and reckon with contradiction are turning points at which we either enter or evade the mystery of God, the God who said: “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe. . .” (Isaiah 45:7).”
Shalom

And how is this different than the way we relate to anything at all? My words and expressions about people, objects, feelings, [i]anything[/i], are a stepping stone between what's real and our understanding. 

You sure seem to have a lot of words to say for someone that thinks that way. But, this is something though- you acknowledge that there is a truth about God, and that people are somehow led to it. So what is the truth about God?

I see someone reading my post, and wondering "Why does Uccisore seem so hostile whenever Bob addresses him?" and I see myself responding "Because Bob calls himself a Christian, but never misses an opportunity to criticize anybody who defends Christianity." I guess what I miss is, how you think you aren't 'playing the game' like everybody else. If anyone else said that figured like Luther, Erasmus, and Calvin were leading the world astray, it would be considered a dogmatic, sectarian statement about how things are, and how things are not. Somehow, though, when a mystic makes an exclusionary statement it's completely different. You seem to think you've risen above the squabbling, but a Wesleyian could have said all those things in the name of his denomination. 

I know there is much knowledge between the lines in Scripture, and that the lessons run deep. I’m not sure where it is that you think I would disagree about this, except possibly that I think the letters and words never contradict that deeper meaning. Why would they?

I use "He" to refer to God because in English, using "It" would be derogatory, and using "She" would be to stir controversy where innappropriate. It's just a fact that there's no appropriate way to refer to a genderless person in English. 

I agree.

I may disagree with this, depending on how you mean 'communion' and 'rational sense'. I consider prayer to be a sort of communion with God, for example.  As to confusing the theory with the Mystery, well I don't see how that can be helped.  One does not develop a theory to be a lie, I should think- the idea of having a theory about God is that it accurately describes some facet of Him. If I believe a theory about how God is, then I believe the claims about God in that theory are true, and thus confusing the theory with the Mystery doesn't really mean anything for me. 
 Now, you are free to think that developing theories about God is a mistake in the first place. I speculate that you couldn't develop that idea without being self-refuting, but still, that's your ballgame.
  Understand that I'm playing the Devil's advocate to an extent.  Whatever you may think about the affair, the fact is that an analytic theologian or philosopher of religion does not [i]take themselves [/i] to be making up ideas about God, and them worshipping those ideas as though they were God- they take themselves to be trying to figure something out through the application of reason, much as people do in any other field. 

Er, how do we know that? God said a whole bunch of stuff in the Bible, why is this particular statement something to hold up as Gospel (pardon the pun) while the rest is mystery and uncertainty?

 Your right hand contradicts your left. You're telling me that Spirituality (your way) is the solution to the puzzle of 'my way is right, and your way is wrong' and then you immediately justify this by telling me how my way is wrong.

Hi Uccissore,

It is different inasmuch as we don’t need to constrict people within our own images, and we don’t have to argue the attributes of God as though we could prove it. We can be deeply committed Christians, but open to the spirit of Buddhism and Tao; we can be obedient to “the Word of God”, but retain a critical approach towards our tradition. We don’t need the exclusiveness, but rest in assuredness. Many of the questions you attempt to answer in this thread are (sorry to resident atheists) ridiculous if you understand that what is being criticised is the interpretation of non-corporeal experience. How can an interpretation be criticised?

The truth about God is available on a spiritual level. Once you bring your spirit into line with the Holy Spirit and seek the inner way, the truth tumbles out and resembles much of what mystics of all religions have presented. Of course, Christians will have Judeo/Christian imagery but this imagery is useful only as long as the group understands it. If you want to speak with people outside of Christianity, you need a broader language to relate to the imagery of other religions.

I see Christianity in a crisis and ask myself why. I see Christianity at odds with other Religions and ask myself why. I see Christians caught up in contradictions and dilemma and ask myself why. Your “hostility” is symptomatic of this dilemma – which isn’t a personal criticism, just an observation. Now, I accept that I am not familiar with the internal habits of American Evangelicals, only with the impression they make. However, being an ardent reader, I find my suspicions confirmed. My concern however, is that evangelical Christians are prone to seeing themselves in the role of the oppressed, the victims of a godless society. In fact, the rest of the world, including many European Christians, see them as potential oppressors or at least oblivious of what real oppression is.

I am ‘playing the game’ within a European context, but not within a conservative or evangelical context. Luther is seen as the founder of the protestant church, but his ranting against the Jews is duly criticised. Luther and Calvin’s intolerance was, as they said themselves, a result of their Bible study and marks the beginning of Christian Fundamentalism. The two agreed that the Bible portrayed Jesus as concerned with how individuals could “inherit eternal life,” but Jesus didn’t say that the laws of Moses were no longer in force, neither did Jesus’ command, “Give to all who ask, asking nothing in return,” constitute practical advice concerning the laws and activity of a nation. It is therefore generally accepted that Jesus directed his teachings at individuals, not toward the setting up of laws and the governance of a state.

But Luther and Calvin’s Fundamentalism seems to have compelled them to conclude that humanity lay in the depths of sin, blindness, stubbornness and ignorance. The idea arose, that Christians needed to choose and serve a godly ruler who would protect and care not just for the people’s bodies but for their souls as well – but how can such a choice be bludgeoned into them? We must take these things critically into account, for example that in 1555, when the majority of Calvin’s political opponents had been routed Calvin succeeded in limiting the freedom of the state, so that his opponents might not be able to summon the larger council, that could oppose him. If Calvin considered a new law necessary, he appeared before the council and demanded it in the name of the Consistory; and this was granted whenever any of the members of the assembly were of his opinion or party. The right of punishment was assumed from the authority of the old covenant, which continually threatened the “stiff-necked” people with death, proclaiming it to be the anger and righteousness of God, and is constantly noticeable in Calvin’s statements.

Now, whereas we can of course say that Luther and Calvin were men of their time, we are not forced to accept all they did. This isn’t a “dogmatic, sectarian statement” but a common opinion expressed by many historians within and outside of the church. It is a notable orientation to OT teaching whilst leaving the mercy of God aside, which was emphasised by Jesus in the Gospels. This kind of Fundamentalism leads to a kind of automatic adoption of conserved words without the spiritual reflection of the needs for today, let alone the humbleness with which Jesus approached his listeners. Taking this kind of behaviour as acceptable, we can see the dangers and indeed the realisation of some of these ideas in modern America.

Words are contradictory, especially when they are translated from ancient languages from completely different origins! The idea of certain groups that the King James Version or others could be the better translation is OK, but they miss the point that a translation from Semitic languages is as much a transliteration as a translation. The Purist approach is problematic.

Prayer is of course a communion with God and probably the most spiritual act that Christians do. But you know that Prayer is listening, probably more than it is speaking. I have heard people say that they are worried that the “inner voice” they hear could be the devil. They mistrust their natural ability to intuitively hear and differentiate. I find Majorie Thompson’s “Soul Feast. An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life” helpful in this area (which should indicate that I am playing the game).

My only concern is that Christians firstly understand that Theories are exactly that, and that they do not get themselves caught up in contradictions. These theories with all their contradictions are helpful in finding the Paradox. But you need to accept them first and not try to explain them away. All disputes with atheists and other critics that are based on trying to prove these thing must fail.

“I AM THAT WHICH I AM” is mystery and uncertainty. It is comparable to the answer that Jacob gets at Pniel (the Face of God) “Jacob asked and said, please reveal Your name. And He said, Why this that you ask about My name? And He blessed him there. “

I haven’t understood what you are saying here. My aim is to show that Spirituality must produce Piety, not the other way around, and that many conflicts are needless if we understand the nature of the Revelation of the Mystery.

Shalom

No, I suppose we don’t need to, but why oughten’t we? What I’m saying is, why not talk about God the same way we talk about any other subject in philosophy? I think a philosopher who has been at it for any length of time must respect the fact that it will be rare that they prove anything.

Well, if a Buddhist or a Taoist says something I think is true, then I will accept it as surely as if someone else said it, no doubt. Beyond that, I don't know what you mean by 'being open to the spirit of...'. 

I didn't ask you how to get it, I asked you what it was. If it's not something you can state, then what am I to make of it? 

 The crisis Christianity is in in the US is largely from a lack of values, a value-less lifestyle presented as desireable in all forms of media, and the encroachment of New-Age and other forms of belief that lack discipline, in my view. Christianity is at odds with other religions for the same reasons that all those other religions are at odds with each other- they are, by their very nature, competitive in the same way that Communism and Capitalism, various sports teams of the same sport, or other such things are competitive; by the very fact that we can point out "Here is one religion, and there is another", we are acknowledging that they are alternatives to each other- two differening viewpoints competing for the same niche in people's minds. 

 In the United States, it's relatively true. Christians are moving from a position of being on the forfront of deciding how culture ought to be, to benig consistantly pushed into the background. If you think that's a bad thing, then it's a form of oppression. If you think that's how it should have been all along, then it's not. As to the rest of the world seeing us as potential oppressors, yes I'm aware of that- that's the standard line that people who hate and persecute Christians play out. When a religious display is no longer allowed in a public place where it has been allowed for decades, the argument is that the display is oppressive to the wiccans or the atheists or whoever. 

 Common opinions of scholars can't be dogmatic and sectarian? Anybody who says anything can quote people with alphabet soup after their name to support them. Now, I'm not saying you're wrong about Luther and Calvin, because I've heard those things too.  What I'm saying is, in essence all you are doing is putting down one method of religious thought, and promoting another- just like everybody else.  Every religion has it's 'inner language' that justifies why it is superiour and holy compared to everything else, that makes little sense to anyone on the outside, talk of Spirituality and Piety is yours. Every religion has people in it's history that did rotten things, that skeptics can drag up to discredit the whole system.  For my take, the word "Spirituality" has been so abused as of late that I would need a analytical break down of how you were using it to believe that it had any value at all. 

All approaches can be problematic.  I think that someone who 'reads between the lines' and sees something in Scripture that completely contradicts what the actual lines are saying is more than likely reading from their own imaginations. As hard as it is to pull the original wisdom from the transliterated words, it could only be [i]that much harder[/i] to pull the original wisdom from what you 'feel' the 'inner meaning' is, in spite of what the words say.  

A valid concern, I should say- which is why I’m a dogmatist. If we didn’t have written words and rituals, we’d all be off praying to tree-bark and getting our communion from all sorts of unsavory spiritual beings that may or may not exist. I think the intuitive ability to hear and differentiate is imperfect if one does not lead a ver disciplined life. Things like Scripture give us a foundation of what God is like, of what to expect, so that hopefully we don’t have issues like the above.

At the very heart of reason is the idea that a contradiction is a mistake. It’s the linguistic equivalent of pain- it’s how you know you did something wrong.

Hi Uccisore,

I’m fascinated that you have me quoting Scripture: Col 2:8 Watch that there not be one robbing you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.

For me this is an indication that the nature of Faith is different to Philosophy, even though we have the same subject in the end. Rene Weber, in her Dialogues with Sages and Scientists, discovered that both the scientist and the mystic seek unity in the universe or reality. “A parallel principle derives both science and mysticism – the assumption that unity lies at the heart of our world and that it can be discovered and experienced by man”. While the Philosopher approaches the question of unity through scientific methods and reasoning, the Mystic approaches it through contemplation and reflection of spiritual experience, both personal and reported (Scripture).

The Christian was of course tempted in the midst of so much Philosophy to prove that his belief was presentable, if not superior, but Paul makes it clear that Christian Spirituality is different to Philosophy, like comparing pears and apples, and those who fall into the trap are like booty for the Philosophers. This describes the situation that I interrupted (excuse me) here in this thread. Christianity is often hijacked by people who want to philosophise and not help people follow Christ.

It means, quite simply, that Buddhists and Taoists (and others) by all contradiction, have a spirit akin to the Christian spirit, if we learn to see it.

There are many Christian mystics who speak to us since the beginning of Christianity. Whether it is Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Basil of Caesarea, Benedict of Nursia, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian of Carthage, Ignatius of Antioch, Iranaeus of Lyons, Origen, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Isaac of Syria, George Fox from the Quakers, Meister Eckhart, Emerson, Brother Lawrence, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Bede Griffiths, William Law, Paul Tillich and many more. They have a lot to say about faith, spiritual knowledge, yearning for union with God, asceticism, divinization, and service of others.

Gregory of Nyssa (330-395):
“Know to what extent the Creator has honoured you above the rest of creation. The sky is not an image of God, nor is the moon, nor the sun, nor the beauty of the stars, nor anything of what can be seen in creation. You alone have been made the image of the Reality that transcends all understanding, the likeness of the imperishable beauty, the imprint of true divinity, the recipient of beatitude, the seal of true light. When you turn to him, you become that which he is himself … there is nothing so great among beings that can be compared with your greatness. God is able to measure the whole heaven with his span. The earth and the sea are enclosed in the hollow of his hand. And although he is so great and holds all creation in the palm of his hand, you are able to hold him, he dwells in you and moves within you without constraint. For you are a temple of the living God, even as God said, “I will” dwell in them and “walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2. Cor.6:16, Lev. 26:12; Ezek. 37:27)

Surely you mean that these are the reasons for the crisis in society – not the crisis in Christianity? You see, on one hand you are exclusive, and now you are inclusive in your view. If you would say, like Paul, that Christians shouldn’t “be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what fellowship does light have with darkness?” then you would be saying that unity, partnership and fellowship are something that sisters and brothers of the Church have, and that these things are not something that Christians have with people who actively disbelieve and lead their lives accordingly.

On the other hand, Paul didn’t need to worry about distinguishing the valuable from the value-less, it is apparent by its fruits. “You will know them by their fruits,” said Jesus (Matthew 7:20). Parker Palmer writes that this statement is “a challenge that seems especially important today when the popular spirituality is narcissistic, self-obsessed, and self-indulgent. The religion of the American middle-class sometimes seems to mock the Gospels; it aims at enhancing the self-esteem of persons who have material comfort while ignoring conditions of poverty and pestilence which deprive a whole class of people of life itself, let alone feelings of self-worth. What are the fruits of your spiritual life, and mine?” It seems to me that this is where the crisis of Christianity lies and that the competition with other Religions merely takes our eyes off of that fact.

Sorry, but that just won’t wear. Not when an evangelical President is bringing conservative judges into position and political parties have to play up to Christians. People from Europe who visit America are amazed at how omnipresent religion is there, albeit not to our taste.

Recently I read: “Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.”

Why do you resort to saying I’m right but you don’t like my method because that is what everybody is doing? There is something inherently wrong here. It is something that Christians and non-Christians alike are noticing and you put it down to being dogmatic and sectarian? I’m sorry, but we have reached the weakest part of your argument.

Examples of such utter contradictions would help. I can’t remember having said anything that would fall into this scheme. Mysticism is of course inspired by Scripture, but it digs deeper by means of meditation and contemplation, knocking on doors, seeking, asking. It doesn’t simply adopt words 1:1 into modern times, but seeks the universal message.

Here we have an example of the deep anxiety that moves evangelical Christianity more than love – and you know: “fear is not in the love, but the perfect love doth cast out the fear.” Why do you see the world as full of devils and not full of grace?

Shalom

Most of my logic is drawn from breaking down the odds of everything.

My theory of life has the odds…

5000000000000000000000000/1 …that I am wrong. Therfore I presume that I am right.

God existing…

5000000000000000000000000/1…That he exists.

Therfore he does not exist for me.

I’m not using exact odds by the way, but very rough examples.

dont take offense to this
but no matter who started this all existence is very smart
ide like to congratulate a higher being that would be a awsome experience
between real and fake your in control
between god and satan you manifest your fears and questions
and you cannot escape being a tool between freedom of sin
and torture from law (virtue,commandments).

Uccisore, don’t you just love this time of year. The leaves turning color in Maine…now that is a spectacle. Do you really live in Maine?

Quote:
If God has no weight, or height, mass, velocity or anything that can be found in public objects such as air, trees and light, then the analogy is weak, if not impossible. That was the point. You compare God with things when God is no-thing.

Again, I still fail to see the point of this: We’re still talking about things we both already know, as though you are waiting for me to reveal to you that God is immaterial.
O- You don’t have to reveal to me, my friend; it is I who must reveal to you such things…but I know the power of faith.

But, to your point, God does have a number of properties in common with external objects (…) For example, God (allegedy) knows things.
O- Wait a second. First you say that “God does have”, very matter-of-factly. Now we humble ourselves to “allegedy”? Not so confident in the commoness of these external objects which can only be alledged.

He has aims. He possesses self-awareness, and there is such a thing as ‘what it’s like to be God’. In other words, He posseses the qualities of a Mind. Now, a mind defies your classifications. It is not exactly a public object, since a group of people cannot analyze a mind together. On the other hand it is not a personal idea either- I take it for granted that your mind is not a figment of my imagination. It is as external as a tree, even if I can only observe it indirectly.
O- Let’s agree that God is unlike my mind or yours. It has no brain and no body and we find, that in humans, laking a brain prevents a body from having a mind. The mind is an intractable thing and even now it’s definiting is debated, but I can imagine you or another human having a mind by a simple generalization with a bit of parsimony. That is based on a little faith. But to impute God with a mind does not mean that I have before me a body like me, or anything called God before me. Indirectly? How so? We assume that God has a mind or that He is a Mind first and foremost by accepting the stories read to us about All that there is.
Again, God is an idea within a theory.
God is a mind. No-- God must be, has to be, cannot be anything, but a Mind, or have a Mind, or else the theory makes no sense. The theory preceedes the judgement of God. For example, I could say that God exist but has no mind. That would not fly not because it is impossible but because it disagrees with scripture. Again, Scripture dictates what God is and can be though of. As you might recall, a revelation from a vision MUST agree with scripture in order to be takes as comming from God.
The shackles put on “God” reveal this god to be not a god of experience, or external qualities independend of all else and to His own pleasure and choice. But is an idea-God. It is the idea deified. We hold that having a mind is a “good”, thus God must not lack any of it. God is an idea within a theory.

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God might well exist, as well as unicorns and Sasquash; but God is a theory, or an idea within a theory.

This sort of talk confuses me. If God is a theory or an idea, then it without question exists-
O- As much as we can say that extraterrestials, Sasquashs or unicorns etc also exists.

I know this because I myself have the idea, and hold the theory.
O- You have FAITH my friend.

But the notion that the God we consider is only a theory becomes false if you ask yourself the simple question- what does this theory state? It states that there is an external Being like I discribe above that created the Universe. That postulated Being is God, and the theory has no use but to suggest there is such a thing as He.
O- So let me get this straight.

1. God is an idea, but IS real because you believe it is. I could agree that he is real to You only.
2. But God is more than an idea, according to you, God is more that theory, and how do we find out?:
   a- ask what does the theory states. Notice that this requires no perception. It is an exercise of the mind alone. How then, by this, does God emerges as more than mere idea?
   b- The theory does not say that “there is an external Being like I discribe above that created the Universe. That postulated Being is God”. I know you think it does, but my proposition meant that the theory declares that the Universe is created. God is the idea within the theory of Who that Creator is.
   c- We can agree that the theory may have no other purpose but to produce a God…or a control mechanism, if you ask me, but I still see this “God” as Idea and not yet still as external reality. The theory has reality to you, that is well and good but the theory itself or your opinion of the theory bear little effect on what is actually, in theory, the case. Just because in your lights, the theory is true, it does not make the theory a Law, or disproves conclusively other theories, like Materialism.

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For example, you say that God was the creator. You imply as a done fact that the universe WAS indeed created.

Do I? My points are twofold:

1. The Problem of Evil fails unless one equates God with the universe.
   O- No. The problem of Evil exist with equity in value between heaven and earth. It exist by our definitions of “good” and “evil”. It requires no patheism as that is included already in a Monotheistic religion. You can indirectly accord evil to the Devil, yet that is a modern presumption not shared by the ancients.
   In any event, what does result in it’s defense is contradictory, often. His ways are not our ways, for example. Well then, in which way does “good” apply to Him? Every attribute must be defenestrated then, as Maimonides did, as the arrogant pretensions of little minds. Little minds. That is our problem. Job is asked what does he know of creation itself and all the wonders within. This is explained by theologians as assurance that while we might not understand His justice, that it is there nonetheless. It is our lot to suffer in this life, is the message of the ancients…yet God is good and just, BUT in ways we neither can comprehend nor criticise. His ways are not our ways and his justice is not our justice. From this tension come forth the POE.

2. Theists hold that God is a real, external Being, just as individual humans are external to each other.
   O- I shall continue to disagree in your mismeasurement of the situation. “just as”? Anthropocentrism is your only end here.

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Why can’t the universe be eternal? I see no reason.

You don’t? Nothing we see in the universe is enternal
O- How do you KNOW?

and as far as we can tell, everything we define as ‘the universe’ is going to come to an end we call heat death.
O- Under one theory. Another states that the universe will experience a Cold Death, where all motion stops. Based on some models, the mass of the universe cannot overcome the rate of expansion in the universe. There shall be no rewind…under some theories. What do I know? These are only speculations.

As far as scientists can tell
O- “Some scientists” you should say. This generalizations are unwarranted.

everything we call the universe began a measureable amount of time ago.
O- According to the M-theory, there was something before the Big Bang.

We know a great deal about nature, and enternity is not a property we can give it.
O- Why not?
Omar- What was there before the universe?
Theist- The Big Bang.
Omar- What was there before the Big Bang?
Theist- There was God.
Omar- What was there before God?
Theist- That cannot be asked nor answered. It is like asking what is north of the north pole.
Omar- Nope. North of the pole are the stars. Perhaps we will find there among the stars the limits that math postulates to our expanding universe. There, I would like to scientifically demonstrate the finitude of the universe. I shall throw a rock at this limit. If it bounces back, then I can believe that the universe has limits and ends. If the rock drifs and never returns, then in my death bed I shall remember and believe in no such limits but in the infinity of the universe.
(The dialogue is meant to show that eternity and infinity are not demonstrable while finitude is. The problem then is that we stop asking when no reason is there not to ask.)
I have as much right to ask about who created God in light of the theory you support. If you deny me that right then I shall deny you the right to ask whether the universe has a beginning. Again, just because some theory claims to measure the age of creation, it is taken on faith rather than on experience. Other theories instead deny the limits set within the first one, such as string theory.
What I do say is not that X or Y is true but that if we could find the origin and birth of the cosmos, we should not doubt that the same can and will be done with God and any and all other Gods we find after the fact indefinetly. Only by faith do you secure the trace to…whatever idea you decide to call God.

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It is because of this that I say the obvious-- that God, within a religion, secured not by eyes or ears but by faith, by imagination, by the belief in the infallibility of a story-telling book, is and can only be an object of the mind. It is not always like this. For Abram, for Moses, God was an object.

You paint a view of religion that isn’t true. Having spent a lot of time in a religious community, I would say confidently that well over half of Christians can point to events in their lives they define as God answering prayer, God talking to them, or otherwise evidence of God’s being in their life. I would say those experiences are equally important as ‘belief in the infallibility of a story-telling book’. In other words, there are a great many Abrahams and Moses’ running around out there.
O- What do muslims experience? Remember what I said about empiricism. And unless these mystics had experiences that included the parting of a sea, a column of fire, or were told something as unpleasant as the duty to kill their child, then I would say that they experienced only what they wanted to experience and my scepticism levels them to Ghost hunters, Crop circle enthusiast or an alien-abductee.

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No, and you are being very forgiving here in your analogy, but I shall accomodate it within the discussion. What is the point of nutrition? A healthy body. But can we agree on just what a healthy body should be?

The problem with nutrition is not that people can’t decide what ‘healthy’ is. Define ‘healthy’ in some extremely simple, agreeable way like “Living past 65”, and you will STILL get a thousands different conflicting ideas on the best diet to achieve that.
O- I disagree. The more simple and agreeable, then the less different and conflicting ideas. The more ambigious the definition, the more egalitarian the word or concept. The farther away you look at something, the more things within the picture you will have yet the less details as well.
One danger of tolerance is that it requires often efforts to make dominant religions ambiguous. If one requires little from their concept of God, other religions become acceptable and tolerable, such is the case with judaism and christianity. They sing in the same choir because the song they sing is sung without words, but with ambiguous sounds. Were they to sing with words, they would find that the music might be the same but the song is so different that they lose rhytim and melody. What they do? They concentrate on God = G-d, and ignore that while the concept shares some letters, the former denotes a man called Jesus.

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Let the heads roll. It is not just that God allows evil; as we see in the ancients God “create(s)” evil and darkness. Now, not why, but How can a merciful God create evil? Is like asking: How can we think of Mother Teresa dipping newborns in boiling oil or smashing their heads against the rocks? I am sorry for the image, but that is extreme enough not be a relative reference to what we could call an Evil.

The first step is to stop comparing God to Mother Teresa.
O- Why? Does Mother teresa have no mind?

The second step is to realize, like the above, the only way to make the Problem of Evil work is to draw on heartstrings. It presents no contradiction.
O- I am tired of showing you why there is a contradiction, an inconsistency, a departure. His ways are not our ways. God is trancendent yet we talk of him as if we talked about a man. That IS THE INCONSISTENCY. That is the POE. We speak of Good and of evil, but how do they apply to a God? They do not. If you imagined a man like God he would not be called “good” all of the time in fact even most of the times. Yet God is no man. God is the Creator. God is the master, man His born slave. That is your contradiction. You can argue the external existence of God etc. Yet, He exists unlike anything that we know to exist. Not mind, not tree, rock table, breeze, light etc. God trancends them. “like” is a heresy, if you think of it and it’s application the reason for the contradiction. His ways are not our ways.
When God exist, or is said to exist like things in creation, or like our mind, what exists is our own idol, our concept, man dressed like God. Humanity deified.

What’s wrong with the Free Will defense?
O- The POE cannot be wiped clean by the existence of choice because I cannot choose to bring forth Hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, all of which cause suffering. The problem of evil is as gutwrenching as having to ask why must millions die when all they needed was a little rain. So simple, yet so incomprehensible.

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Let’s get back to Job. Why does God allow Satan to kill Job’s children? God already knows the measure of Job’s character…and for that matter the Devil…so He knew what would happen. Perhaps He wanted to prove Satan wrong, but God then is sacrificing the pearl of Job for the biggest Pig there is? Is this consistent? Can we truly say that God is Good then?

This is neither here nor there. For the sake of argument, let’s just say that the book of Job is a fiction and the things therein never happened.
O- This we cannot do, or at least, it is not allowed by the rules we play by.
The book of Job is found in the Book. Thus, it is the Word of God and “until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen” is questionable by us, born slaves. Job has to be a real person, or thought to be that, or we might as well doubt the very existence of Abram, Isaac and Jacob, if not Jesus as well.

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The problem of the righteous sufferer emerges with the evolution of the state goverment. The more brutal the age, the more brutal the God. The gentler, or more civilized man became, so did his God–which is another reason why we might suspect that God rather than being an independent object out-there is a dependent object within.

Yes, this is an ever-present risk. How we view God changes according to our culture, there’s no way to avoid it completely, but that’s why things like Bibles are so important- the provide a bit of an anchor throughout time.
O- I disagree. 250 years ago, in this nation, slavery flourished, not among pagans, but among christians reading then the same Bible you might read now. Where now, you might see in the Bible the arguments for the inmorality of that institution, back then that same Bible was seen and read as securing the right of a master over his slave.
Second of all, the Bible is a construction. It did not decend from heaven with 65 books nice and neatly bound, but required councils, list and the opinions of an emperor, how ironic!, to give us the “Word” of God.
You are correct at one thing. The Bible was meant to end the strife in the earlier times, when Alexandria and Rome battled; when the wolrd had christianities rather than christianity. But while Rome had won, it was not for all times and after the rise of Protestanism we have returned to a new age of “christianities”.
“Look! This is something new?” It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time."

But yes, I agree that the common view of God has become more gentle as society has changed. This makes the problem of evil worse. A classic example I myself have met, is the person who claims that “The God they know” would never ever allow there to be such a thing as hell, or condemn people ‘just for not believing in Him’ or punish people for their human failings. I often wonder how such a Dr. Spock of a God can possibility be consistant with the world I see on the evening news.
O- Just what is so bad about Mr Spock?! LOL!! But try to see why that God is preferable. I think that humanity needs Hell and that is why people believe in it. Hell and Heaven are outcrops of the POE. They are answers to Ecclesiastes.
This is a controversial line of thought, but what I don’t understand is how the evening news can prove the existence of Hell.

A God who is agreed up front to “bring rain to the just and the wicked alike” may be less pleasent, but makes more sense in the long run.
O- But is by definition less than “good”.

1.god creates evil
2.god destroys evil
3.death is evil action
4.no such thing as good

pure and imperfect are the only things
running this world imperfect humanity
and pure nature we destroy this planet
for no reason so we are imperfect and evil,
nature places revenge on the innocent not by choice
it is only a calm force protecting itself and in the bible
is just a manifestation for god to destroy satan.

(x)satan tempts eve
(xx)eve eats the apple of knowledge and chaos
(xxx)that places us inbetween god and satan
(xx)adam is innocent but accepts and follows eve’s mistake
(x)adam hides from god
(xx)god is enraged and sends them all out of eden
(xxx)why don’t they go to heaven?

eve made a mistake god didn’t fogive her just sent her out of eden
if god really loves man then he would stop eve from offering adam
the knowledge and chaos of our times leading us to a smoother path
into heaven but no we struggle with nature anymore i would know this
because not just because im in florida and another hurrican can hit but
i’m thinking its a setup of a selfish and evil god who says he is good
yet kills the tempter who was just made to be evil he didnt want to be
im positive of that fact.