Except the fudge.

Aquinas said something pithy about this.

do you decide that this proves that there is no God?

If you hit your finger with a hammer, do you say that the hammer is evil?

Well, in my own limited mind.

Now she is fighting back by reducing humans.

thanks

...I'd be looking straight ahead.

Do we want a controlling father who makes us only do what he wants, or do we want to be free to make mistakes for ourselves and to suffer for those mistakes?

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did he choose to be killed? Is the free will of the son more important to God than the life of the neighbor?

benefit from those choices and some suffer.

Over innocent lives? Let good people die and suffer so that evil people can choose? God choose evil over good.

be machines. It isn't so much about what God wants, assuming there is a God, it's about humans making choices that have consequences.

is not supported by reality. Neuroscience would differ.

is responsible for his own choices and his own actions.

But we live in a world that treats us as if we are responsible for all our actions, when the reality is more complex.

Free Will is a rabbit hole we fall into.

nope, so the analogy fails right there, but wait, there's more fail!

Please explain what the holy fork 'free will' has to do with a pandemic.

Thanks.

that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator of the universe?

This pandemic would not have happened were it not for the choices humans made.

This is exactly the kind of deflection that Trump supporters do for their god. It's never his fault. It's China's fault. It's Hillary's fault. Ad nauseum.

If your god exists, and its nature is as you believe it to be, then there are some really difficult situations that come out of being omnipotent. This is one of them. Just admit you don't know how to resolve the issue rather than making shit up.

the perceived form and functionality of God is different for each of those who hold a belief in him.

One can believe in God or Gods and not believe that he is omnipotent and/or directly responsible for all the bad stuff that happens to us.

It isn't for me or other atheists to define God or to tell believers what responsibilities or lack of responsibilities their God has.

I notice that you aren't even bothering to defend it, but instead are now trying to divert this into an argument about atheists defining god. That's also a bad place for you, since you just did that with your analogy.

First rule when you find yourself in a hole: stop digging.

But yeah, it's probably just because we "didn't like it." You bet. While you're criticizing others for supposedly trying to define god for believers, you should probably refrain from doing exactly that with awful analogies. That's the bad place you've put yourself in. But then if you're OK with hypocrisy, carry on. I won't stop you. Keep digging!

You know, like real fathers do? God can't even bothered communicate with his children directly. He's an absentee father.

create things like the Earth, the seas, humans? He didn't even work a seven day week!

Maybe he goofs on seeing us suffer.

If the answer is the former, then he’s kind of a dick for not intervening when he’s needed and there’s really no point in worshipping someone who doesn’t give the least shit about his creation.

If the answer is the latter, there’s really no point in worshiping him.

This of course assumes there really is an invisible sky daddy, for which there is no evidence beyond those who engage in utterly baseless speculation.

So as far as those who take your argument and declare “checkmate atheists”, they might want to rethink that reasoning.

God moves in a mysterious way. In our modern jargon, shit happens.

Seriously, the similarities between Yahweh and the dotard ... they're both self-obsessed, vindictive, thin-skinned, and insecure. Recall, the first four items in the Decalogue are all about him.

the ultimate diverse, replicating (in sorrow), predator and plague upon the earth at a location with non-magic finite resources?

Then you'll know He's really pissed.

"This is God's way of punishing the fundamentalist Christians for supporting the anti-christ Donald Trump."

Just sayin'.

It is easily answered if one simply acknowledges that the Creator allows creation to evolve.

So who created evolution? Who put into place the mechanics of evolution? This isn't man making a hammer and then dropping it on his foot. No one is using their free will to mutate anything.

Once again the theists are asked to explain why their God does such shit, only to find them repeating the same non-explanations and worthless platitudes.

and the disregard of basic hygiene and the abuse of animals, this would not have happened. Do you have an explanation for that? Why do you blame "Jesus" or "God." instead of focusing on the choices made by humans, and this isn't the first epidemic that has started in this way.

I am merely pointing out the supreme hypocrisy of religion that tries to portray their God as a loving creator.

What you seem to want, what many seem to want of a Creator is a pain free existence, where hammers never fall on feet, and no one ever dies.

I don't want a creator. I'm happy without one. But that's not what you are selling. You're pushing a loving god who sent his own son to die. You're the one attributing motives. I'm just pointing out your hipocrisy.

If you are happy with your view, I am happy for you.

great. I'm so glad we finally agree on this issue.

Those who want to try to reconcile evolution with creationism tacitly admit their god is noninterventionist, which opens up a whole can of worms. If god doesn’t intervene on behalf of his creation, then why do they spend so much time asking for favors and thanking him for everything that happens to work out?

The reality is they do believe their god does intervene, which kinda makes him an asshole for not doing so when it matters. Then you have those who claim god could intervene, but decides not to because it’s justice imposed on all of humanity for the errors of a few. In other words an even bigger asshole. And yet still they line up to worship and beg favor of him, as if that will ever do any good.

be informed that it is a misreading.

pandemics?

How convenient.

It is not ethical to leave your infant child alone in a room full of razor blades.

The god you describe is a fucking dick. If he were a human being, living here in the US, social services would be on his ass in a heartbeat.

A house built on sand cannot stand.

...you'd get down on your knees and thank them for the valuable learning opportunity they've provided us.

designed for death.

By your logic, the universe must be evil because negative outcomes exist. When arguments such as this are made, the assumption on the part of the debater is that God is evil because God allows evil to exist.

People fall down, not because of God, but because of gravity and other issues.

If I hit my finger with a hammer, I blame my own technique.

The blind men gather around the elephant . Each man is a pioneer to be respected for reaching out and struggling to understand the nature of the elephant. Some of them try to describe what they experience, some proclaim loudly that they are certain they understand all about the elephant. We are but fleas on the elephant, jumping off onto certain men usually due to our proximity to that man. Most fleas take for granted that their hosts speak the truth and it usually is the truth as far as that blind messenger can relate. Why? Because the elephant is infinite. Don't worry about how the chicken lays the egg. Worry about where the chicken lays the egg. We can't understand the infinite because we are finite. We can make observations however. Studies in hospitals have shown prayer works. (This not woo woo!) A real test of the power in religion is using the golden rule. It doesn't matter if Jesus said that or Mr. Data said that. It works. Try it and you'll be amazed at the results. Try paying it forward. This is a powerful concept and can have wondrous and unexpected results. Don't ask why, ask what you can do. Take action, get moving! On a closing note, I'll leave this famous prayer;
O God,give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other. AMEN and peace be with you.

the men would get together and use their joint data to approximate the elephant.

In theology, they would kill each other.

The other answer to this elephant in the room bullshit is, at least the men felt something tangible, as opposed to a God for which there is no evidence there is anything at all. The infinite elephant for which there is no observable footprint.

Friendly warning.

Then I don't want to hear any bullshit about the glory and mercy of God. It's all nature. Thank you for saying God does not exist.

Even Richard Dawkins does not rule out the existence of God and calls himself an agnostic. I am glad you know better than one of the most outspoken celebrity atheists.

Nature is just nature. You turn nature into God by giving it sentience. Dawkins speaks for himself. I can disagree with him if I want.

That's a thread winna' to me.

Depends on whom you want punished, and for what.

Except that then you realize that the universe doesn't really care if you live or die and makes no provision for you.

Everything else, from religion to politics, literature and consumerism, boils down to trying to make meaning. And part of that meaning for humans is to make tribes and acquire rank in those tribes, and oppose my tribe against your tribe. Because without the constant fighting and bickering, there's less self-importance and meaning.

Until the universe drops some sort of galactic Lysol on Earth and we're all gone and it's all been meaningless. Without there being anybody there to even judge our existence as meaningless--for that would require somebody noticed and actually had to consider if there had been meaning.

My son used to have a rather large tank with Madagascan cockroaches. You could hear the males hissing as they challenged each other for territory.

Then my son lost interest in them. We didn't notice when he stopped feeding them. They slowly ate through the cardboard scaffolding. Then corpses. Then there were a few dozen on top of a mass of cockroach feces and remains. I walked near their tank one day, got a whiff of the scent, I put them outside in January. It was cold enough a week later that they all died of cold.In March I dumped them in the garden and turned them under. You could see bits of exoskeleton the next spring--durable stuff, chitin.

But in June my son asked where his cockroaches had gone. We're like those males hissing over a square inch of cardboard egg container, only of less importance. And they had somebody ask about them, long after they were gone.

We make our own meaning. Criticizing how somebody else makes their meaning because it's obviously wrong and saying this other utterly pointless and meaningless way of making meaning is right boils down to gentle hissing sounds.

Now, if we can just get Trump to hold a rally with lots of Red Hatters stuffed into a confined space...

Why is God such a dick?

in the Old Testament: "Kill your son, Abraham." "Wander around the desert for 40 years, Jews" (thus beginning the tradition of men refusing to ask for directions ). "Watch as everyone else gets to go across the River Jordan, Moses." "Here's a recipe for bread, Ezekiel; don't forget to cook it over human shit." Ezekiel 4:12 Here's an interesting story about Ezekiel bread.

Personally, I like the words printed in red (what Jesus said) that are in the small copy of the New Testament that my grandmother gave me when I was six. Having a Son seems to have mellowed God a little, although a little of the old one crept out when he appeared to forsake Jesus on the cross.

And just to end this thread in accordance with Godwin's Law, why would a merciful God let Hitler exist?

(I realize that the bat vector may not even be accurate, just riffing on a shitty meme)

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says it's because of sin.

See, it ain't rocket science.

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The same god made us, all the while KNOWING that we couldn't please him.

Then he decided to keep us going after death so that he could torture us forever -- because the way HE made us was never going to be good enough for HIM!!!!

Then, later, he got himself temporarily killed.

Then came back.

Then disappeared without a trace (except rumors).

And he will still torture people forever if they doubt that story.

This virus thing is just one tiny example of what their Trump-wannabee god is like.

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