Idk give it a shot

that was brilliant.

Well first how would i go about giving belief in a deistic God a shot?


But that wasn't really my point. It was more none of life's decisions would filter through belief in a desist non interventionist God since you would not know what choices they would approve or disapprove of so your stuck with your own filter.

Try asking your local deistic non interventionist congregation this question.

What's that? There's isn't a deistic non interventionist faith base in your community? I thought everyone would have had one of those by now!

I guess you're not familiar with the Unitarians.

I thought that the Unitarians were Theists. Do they not believe that God is interventionist?

"the guinea worm can not survive a month without a host. the aim of the guinea worm is to infect mammals like us. that is the only way it can propagate itself.

i don't think that a loving god could have created the guinea worm. do you? "


Why not ?

Well, try to get infected and see if that answers the question for you.

I believe this has been addressed.

So if I intentionally infect myself with a parasite and God doesn't stop me from suffering, he isn't a 'loving' God ?

You are consistent with the OP's assertion at least.

It's a classic 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.

because i think that creating guinea worms is an act of a non-loving deity?

not sure how to elaborate on why i wouldn't give guinea worms to someone i love. i figured everyone would already understand why they're bad.

don't be silly

"not sure how to elaborate on why i wouldn't give guinea worms to someone i love. i figured everyone would already understand why they're bad."




The question isn't what you would do.

It's what a loving God would do.

Considering we are all born, live our lives, suffer to a greater or lesser degree and then die, it's reasonable to assume God has a different perspective on our needs than we do.

That doesn't prove there IS a God. But your argument certainly doesn't prove there isn't. It's kind of a non starter.

He's not trying to prove there isn't a God; he's providing evidence that, if he exists, he's not loving. (And yes, you're free to perpetually fall back on the "God knows something we don't know" argument, but it's not exactly persuasive.)

of course he does, just like human parents want different things for their kid than the kids want themselves.

to take that analogy further, god is like a mother who scatters thumb-tacks around her child's bedroom.

when discovered and questioned by child protective services, the mother defended the practice, claiming "my thoughts are not like your thoughts, my ways are not like your ways."


who among us would defend that mother or say that she loves her kids despite her mysterious behavior. the people who actually do think she loves her kids would be worried that she's suffering from some sort of mental illness.

don't know why the mother of all creation gets a pass when the meek, fallible, tack-spreading mother gets condemned.

A pass?

If there is an all knowing creator, do you think he needs to explain himself to you? Do you think he should try to earn your forgiveness? Isn't it the other way around?

Fear of suffering should be associated with cowardice, not god. It's not gods fault that guinea worms terrify you and God doesn't owe you an explanation or an apology for not making this life a fluffy pink cotton candy flavored adventure.

Didn't you say something about being a mouthpiece for Satan in an earlier post? So you should know that Satan teaches perfection through suffering. Some mouthpiece you turned out to be.

not "needs to", no. But it would be nice. Why wouldnt he explain himself, given that he supposedly loves us all so much, and can see that the lack of explanations is leading to suffering?


why should there be forgiveness earning on either side?

yes, yes, no

why should the child beg for forgiveness from the mother who spread thumb-tacks randomly all over the child's floor?

i'm sure you can see how insane that sounds when it's a human mother and child. why are the standards different for the mother of all creation? i think the mother of all creation should be held to a higher standard than any primate mother.

of course it's god's fault. god made me and god made guinea worms.

he made me in such a way that i fear and try to avoid pain and suffering, and then he created little bits of pain and suffering all over the world, like thumb-tacks on a floor, waiting to be stepped on.

if fearing guinea worms makes me a coward, then god makes cowards. god shouldn't make cowards and then condemn them for being cowards.

my personal experience of satan tells me you're wrong. i've never heard of "teaching perfection through suffering," but if that can be found in the bible it's probably wrong. as i indicated in my thread "who's really in charge," i believe jehovah spreads lies about satan and gives him a bad rap.

Actually he's not.

As I've already pointed out it's a logical fallacy.

"of course he does, just like human parents want different things for their kid than the kids want themselves.

to take that analogy further, god is like a mother who scatters thumb-tacks around her child's bedroom."

Meh. God could just as easily be the mother who won't let her child eat cake before dinner and the child pitches a fit.

Insofar as I can tell, you've only "pointed out" that God might know something we don't know. Which, as augie has already pointed out, would not hold much weight for any other entity, i.e. the mother who spreads thumb-tacks example.

Just as I initially though, you're going to continually fall back on the "God knows best" quasi-argument. To see why this is flawed, assume God actually is evil, but tells you he's good, and he knows something you don't know. How do we tell the difference between this "Evil Tricky God" and a "Good God" who actually DOES know something we don't know?

I fell back on that argument to prove that the OP's premise is based on a logical fallacy.

I wasn't arguing that God has any particular attributes.

But that fact that he 'could' (just like he could have the attributes you assign him) proves the premise to be false.

I'm not so sure he 'could' be good (as in, *all good*) given that the God augie was arguing against is omnipotent. Now, again, you can fall back on the "God knows something we don't know" argument. However, this premise is based on, insofar as I can tell, us being wholly ill-informed on what constitutes something as 'good'. And it seems to me this argument is no better than me saying "2+2=4", and you replying with "Nah, God said 2+2=5, and he knows something we don't know". Not exactly compelling, I don't think.

EDIT: Btw, would you mind responding to this:

You can't claim from one side of your mouth that God is good, then say from the other that he's mysterious. If he's so mysterious that we can't draw the obvious conclusions from "bad" acts, then his "good" or "loving" acts are just as impenetrable.

OP's premise was the good god that Christians imagine. If you weren't addressing that attribute, then you're not involved in the same conversation that OP is.

That's just silly.

Good and mysterious are two words with separate and distinct meanings.

You're saying that if a child doesn't know taking his medicine is good for him, then it can't be.