by towerwatchman 315 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
There is no possible reason for an omnipotent loving god to booby-trap the planet and violently kill millions of the humans he claims to love. To claim otherwise without offering a sensible reason is dishonest.
there are many millions of believers who do believe in God who are well aware of suffering.
Not one of them has a sensible answer. When you ask them for an explanation they all obfuscate.
morals would have been selected on either pragmatic or utilitarian bases, because that view aims at survival and not truth
What do you mean by moral truth?
There is no possible reason for an omnipotent loving god...
Well that's your opinion. Clearly many believers do have their reasons for believing in God despite suffering, And others don't know the answer but trust there must be an answer.
Not one of them has a sensible answer.
No answer which you find sensible. Which is not necessarily the same thing.
As the OP points out, to assert there is no possible answer to the problem of evil, is basically an assertion that the human mind, or your human mind in particular, has such a perfect and complete grasp of reality that there is simply no possible chance of there being a solution to the problem that you haven't already figured out or judged to be satisfactory. That's a pretty bold claim.
Designing a world that inevitably blows up and randomly kills millions of its inhabitants is not something an all-powerful and loving god would do.
Either he is a bad designer or a sadist.
Either way he is not the god of christian theism.
This is not a bold claim.
To slimboyfat
Yes it is.
Atheists hold two contradictory beliefs at once.
1. That human rationality is a result of natural selection shaped for survival not a God given faculty for seeing the world as it really is.
2. Human rationality can be relied upon to deliver a reliable answer to questions such as "does God exist?"
One or the other assumption has to give.
True if rationality evolved over time then, when it comes to truth, we cannot have any confidence in it because evolution aims not at truth but at survival. Any answers would have been selected on either pragmatic or utilitarian bases, because that view aims at survival and not truth.
I think Nicholas Wolterstorff's answer is the most human. He says he lives with the question without the answer. I think many thoughtful believers approach the problem this way.
There is nothing in that video that addresses my point. The guy that witters on about earthquakes is an ignorant buffoon.
I think Nicholas Wolterstorff's answer was the most human.
You've not addressed the fact that the Bible itself acknowledges that God's actions may seem unjust, and that humans don't have satisfactory answers sometimes. Paul said bluntly:
"But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?" (And the rest of Romans 9)
Paul didn't pretend to know the answer. He said humans don't have the right to question God on his actions.
The Bible writers were apparently not ignorant of the problem of evil, nor did they ignore it. Their conception of God often included the idea that his qualities are difficult to reconcile and that we don't have good answers to why God acts in certain ways.
"But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?"
Paul said a lot of stupid things. Maybe he trembled in god's presence. Doesn't mean we have to be so gullible.
Their conception of God often included the idea that his qualities are difficult to reconcile
Yes they talked a lot of self-contradictory bollocks. Surely you noticed that when you read the bible? We are all a lot wiser than anybody who contributed to the bible.
To Finkelstein
The odds of the essential elements coming together over time by chance to form the initial building blocks of one cell is a statistical impossibility.
Not in the acceptance and understanding of molecular biology. Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it untrue or irrelevant.
"To construct even one short protein molecule of 150 amino acids by chance within the prebiotic soup there are several combinatorial problems – probabilistic hurdles- to overcome. First, all amino acids must form a peptide bond when joining with other amino acids in the protein chain. If the amino acids do not link up with one another via a peptide bond, the resulting molecule will not fold into a protein. In nature many other types of chemical bonds are possible between amino acids. In fact, when amino acid mixtures are allowed to react in a test tube, they form peptide and none peptide bonds with roughly equal probability. Thus, with each amino acid addition, the probability of it forming a peptide bond is roughly ½. Once four amino acids have become linked, the likelihood that they are joined exclusively by peptide bonds is roughly [1/2]^4. The probability of building a chain of 150 amino acids in which all linkages are peptide linkages is {1/2}^149, or 1 chance in 10^45.
Second in nature every amino acid found in proteins [ with one exception] has a distinct mirror image of itself, there is one left handed version, or L form, and one right handed version, or D form. These mirror image forms are called optical isomers. Functioning proteins tolerate only left handed amino acids, yet in abiotic amino acid production the right handed and left handed isomers are produced with roughly equal frequency. Taking this into account further compounds the improbability of attaining a biologically functioning protein. The probability of attaining, at random only L amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain 150 amino acids long is [1/2]^150 or roughly 1 chance in 10^45. Starting from mixtures of D and L form the probability of building a 150 amino acid chain at random in which all bonds are peptide bonds and all amino acids are L form is, therefore, roughly 1 chance in 10^90.
Amino acids link together when the amino group of one amino acid bonds to the carboxyl group of another. Notice that water is the byproduct of the reaction. [Condensation reaction].
Functional proteins have a third independent requirement, the most important of all, their amino acids, like letters in a meaningful sentence, must link up in functionally specified sequential arrangements. In some cases, changing even one amino acid at a given site results in the loss of protein function. Moreover, because a there are 20 biologically occurring amino acids, the probability of getting a specific amino acid at a given site is small 1/20 [actually the probability is even lower because in nature, there are also may none protein forming amino acids.] On the assumption that each site is a protein chain requires a particular amino acid, the probability of attaining a particular protein 150 amino acids long would be [1/20]^150 or roughly 1 chance 10^195. 1chance in 10^195.
Taking this into account only causes the improbability of generating the necessary proteins by chance or the genetic information to produce them, to balloon beyond comprehension. In 1983 distinguished British cosmologist Sr. Fred Hoyle calculated the odds of producing the proteins necessary to service a simple one celled organism by chance at 1 in 10^40K.
[There are 10^65 atoms in our galaxy]”
[Stephen C. Meyer]
Your faith is based on something you cant even logically define and is notably structured around ancient mythological expressions ( the supernatural ). When you base your proven facts solely upon beliefs, your facts aren't verifiable. Scientifically acquired knowledge and acceptance of that acquired knowledge is based upon observation of physical evidence, not imaginary beliefs, therefore it carries with itself a higher level of perspective reality.
I fully agree. My belief that a cell could not evolve based on slime plus time is proven by science. Again my belief is based on observation and physical evidence, yours belief in a prebiotic soup is based on imagination. One thing is for sure, you as an Atheist have a tremendous amount of faith compared to me a mere Christian. But to each his own, I by logic and reason, you by faith alone.
