The Claim That There Is No God Is An Escape From All Realities

[God himself]

Epicuras said it best:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent? Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent? Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

[God himself]

What do you expect God to do? Transport the children to another continent/planet and then kill the rest? Sometimes to destroy evil a little bit of good has to be destroyed. Yes, when lives of children are lost I do question God (remember not my faith in God) and I am sure there is answer somewhere. We just need to look hard enough

Pitiful!

Does looking hard enough not include looking beyond useless superstitions?

[working_mom]

Epicuras said it best:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent? Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent? Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

God Himself, I am not aware of Christian concept so I can only reply to you from the point of Hinduism.

What is evil or rather who is evil? Its our fellow human beings. We say children are gifts from God. Is a newborn child evil? How/who turns this child into evil? Is it god or fellow human beings?

Humans are blessed with the faculty to think. God blessed us with the freedom to choose between a good and evil path. He even laid down certain code of conduct in the form of religion (to me it is the Hindu texts). It is unfair you should blame god if a man chooses to go down the path of evil. And then there is your past karma.  A body without atma or soul is lifeless. A person (not the body but the soul) has to pay for the past sins.  You may ask if all those who were dead in Haiti earthquake sinned in the past. Maybe they did, maybe they did not. As I said, in any war a little bit of good will be destroyed as a collateral damage.

Regarding your question on superstitions, what superstitions? If a man wears a charmed locket when he buys a lottery and he wins a million, he may do it every time he buys a lottery and he may win again which makes him think that the locket is blessed. The word may go around and the locket industry will make a killing. The prices of lockets will soar. But one disgruntled customer will come back saying it is all false and whom does he blame? Poor God himself! (No pun intended    ) and an Atheist is born. The problem these days is that many things are attributed to religion and it has become quite difficult to filter the true meaning of religion from what has been added on later.

*To be continued

[Vulcanl]

working_mom,

Very well put, (as a Christian) your explanation is close to what my answer to Epicuras is:


Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

-Yes, and he is able to prevent evil

 Then is he impotent?

-NO he is omnipotent and all-knowing

Is he able, but not willing?

-Yes, and he is willing

Then is he malevolent?

-NO OF COURSE NOT

Is he both able and willing?

-Yes and yes (note there is no contradiction whatsoever so far)

Whence then is evil?

FROM THE HEARTS OF MAN, SINCE HE GAVE US THE GIFT OF FREE WILL

[martinleet]

The piece in the original post is pretty funny.  The proof that atheists are evil comes from...wait for it..quotes from The Holy Bible!  Well, that settles it then I suppose?

I thought exactly the same thing.

[so what]

Epicurus said what he said to prove that evil has a human origine. Epicurus believed there were multiple gods, but they dont care about humans. Therefore both good and evil are human qualities.

People often use these words to "prove" that God does not exist because He doesnt prevent evil. This was not the intention of Epicurus.

Epicurus answered the question himself by claiming that "all that is pleasurable is good, and all that hurts is evil".
This however presents some problems, because if I hit my enemy in the face it will pleasure me, but hurt him. So is this good or evil?

Epicurus then stated that sometimes "pain is acceptable if it leads to greater pleasure".
So, if my enemy sues me in court after I hit him, and he wins the court case, the pain suffered by him is transferred into pleasure.

Epicurus simply wanted to state that evil is a pure human asset. What the gods do is always good, because they are gods and therefore incapable of doing evil.

By Epicurial standards the only beings confronted with evil (which exists by their own design), are humans.
If the gods decide to prevent evil, then that will be good. If however the gods decide not to prevent evil, then that will be good as well.

[jack705]

I do not agree with those intellectuals who argue that there is a strong inverse relationship exists between faith & intelligence, the true heavenly religion is always in complete accordance with "true" intelligence. Every creation needs a creator logically , so those who deny God will go astray & always get confused.

[hsgreenb]

A few thousand years ago, the sun was Apollo in his flaming chariot.  Now, we know what the sun is so we look at those who believed in Apollo as foolish & naive.

Just as yesterday's religions did, today's explain those things we can't yet fully understand (ie: creation, death, purpose).  I wonder how we'll be looked at in a few thousands years when those things can be fully explained.

That said, why begrudge anyone's right to some faith if that provides a bit of peace in a life challenged by limitation?

Sure, that choice cuts short the process of full understanding but, since full understanding is unobtainable, I'll happily overlook someone's reliance on faith as long as they don't bash me over the head with their beliefs.

[Vulcanl]

The below is a stunning image and properly puts into context how small our World is in the vastness of the Cosmos.  The sheer size and beauty of the Universe is hard for us mere mortals to grasp.  Was this all an accident?  I don't think so.  There was a indeed a creator at work here:



Location: http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13/image/a/

[Vulcanl]

But Good Doctor Hawking:  From whence did the 'nothingness' come?!? 

Telegraph.co.uk

Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.
 
By Laura Roberts
Published: 6:15AM BST 02 Sep 2010

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.

The scientist has claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”
 
He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

In A Brief History of Time, Prof Hawking's most famous work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world.

He wrote in the 1988 book: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”
In his new book he rejects Sir Isaac Newton's theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.

In June this year Prof Hawking told a Channel 4 series that he didn't believe that a "personal" God existed. He told Genius of Britain: "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions."

Until his retirement last year Prof Hawking was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the
University of Cambridge, a post previously held by Newton.

The book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is published on September 9

[T2K]

"Where does nothing come from?"  Seriously?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster?  Thor?  Jesus's dad?  The hole at the end of another dimension?  The question gets so esoteric at that point that any answer, no matter how silly, will suffice.

What Hawking, and other rational people, are getting at is that the laws of nature are sufficiently understood now (though not 100%) that they don't require us to have imaginary friends to explain anymore.

[Vulcanl]

"...any answer, no matter how silly, will suffice..."

Amen!!  But to believers there is MORE - we FEEL God at work in us and in our daily lives.  The resulting joy is as REAL as anything else

"...the laws of nature are sufficiently understood now (though not 100%)..."

Let's talk when science can indeed explain 100% of all that is.

Until then faith in God is the only logical recourse.

[Old Mike]

Exactly. Unless and until the creation of energy from nothing can be demonatrated in the lab, or observed in nature, there is no logical alternative.

[Old Mike]

This is from a NASA publication:

More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe.

In other words, our observations apply to 5% of the entire universe. Drawing sweeping conclusions from that 5% seems to me to be premature.

We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.”
Simon Newcomb, Canadian-born American astronomer, 1888.

“The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote…. Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
Albert. A. Michelson, German-born American physicist, 1894.

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now; All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
Lord Kelvin, speaking to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1900.

[T2K]

Your logic is: The Universe exists, therefore it can only have been created by an all powerful being (probably with a long bear and wearing flowing robes)?

If you want to believe in Ra or Thor or Jesus or Allah or Ganesh or Zeus or the Tooth Fairy or any other mythical creations of man, that's cool.  But don't try to pretend that it's logical!