Timeline for Evil God Challenge: What if an evil god is just trolling humanity and that explains why there's good in the world?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 4 at 9:36 | comment | added | Andy | the argument that God is good by definition can be the path to atheism if one assumes it as axiomatic and follows the evidence to the conclusion that all institutions that purport to have some contact with the divine are in fact completely man made. | |
| Jul 4 at 9:20 | comment | added | bauerdavid | Sure, we can assume these attributes about God, but now my question would be: is the OP's question a thought experiment, or are they interested whether this idea is true? If the former, than the discussion is like "if that would be the case, then A and B would happen." On the other hand, if the latter, than we have to be cautious about every assumption. What makes it rational to make one claim or another about (a) god? | |
| Jul 3 at 13:18 | comment | added | Idran | I'm not sure it does require omnipotence? Say, for example, a hypothetical deity that can create but can't destroy its creations, or a hypothetical deity that can only interact with its creations after their death. Or any other number of restrictions. After all, there are plenty of creator deities that are clearly not omnipotent in their own mythos. | |
| Jul 3 at 8:01 | comment | added | bauerdavid | @Idran It's true, I assumed something like this (see my response to DKing), but creating the universe out of nothing requires omnipotence. And besides omnipotence, I didn't assume the god in question to have any other attributes of the Abrahamic God (like omniscience, omnipresence, immutability etc.). | |
| Jul 3 at 7:52 | comment | added | bauerdavid | @DKing the OP mentions and refutes this argument: "If God is all-powerful, why would He create you, and this world with all its beauty, and your mind, and your soul, just to torture you?" That's why I assumed omnipotence, which, in my reading, comes with self-sufficience. But I agree that when we talk about a god, which is not the Abrahamic one, then we have to define its attributes, otherwise we're not talking about the same thing. I (mis?)interpreted the question as "what if the God who Christians and Jews adore is actually a sadistic maniac?". | |
| Jul 2 at 21:16 | comment | added | Idran | @Groovy That's not quite the deistic argument. The deistic argument (if I remember it right) isn't that God is good because he's the creator, but that God created the concept of morality alongside everything else, and so by definition anything he does is moral. | |
| Jul 2 at 16:06 | comment | added | Groovy | being a creator and being good because of that makes no logical sense. You can create things and be pretty cruel to them. Just because you can. | |
| Jul 2 at 15:00 | comment | added | anaximander | "But where would such a moral code come from?" This essentially paraphrases the question of "how can an atheist have morals?" which is a well-studied question and the foundation of the field of Ethics - the study of what is good and right, derived from first principles without reference to a higher power. This is Philosophy.SE, so from a philisophical viewpoint rather than a religious one, we can assume that a moral code can exist without a God (or else we must conclude that the study of ethics is futile and redundant), and that we can use ethical philosophy to determine what it is. | |
| Jul 2 at 14:33 | comment | added | Idran | This answer seems to be assuming that the OP is saying "what if the universe was created by the Abrahamic God, but God is evil and trolling us". I'm pretty sure the OP is simply saying "what if the universe was created by an evil deity to troll us", with no claims that this hypothetical deity shares any qualities with the Abrahamic God other than having created the universe. | |
| Jul 2 at 14:18 | comment | added | DKing | While I think you are right about the concept of calling a god evil, this is more about how do we know that there is not a god of a certain nature (what the OP might call "evil") which would including being a petty and immature trickster. Such an entity would not be bound by concepts such as self-sufficiency or even acting reasonably. Maybe he wouldn't even have to be omnipotent. | |
| Jul 2 at 13:02 | comment | added | bauerdavid | @MisterMiyagi I agree that our suffering could be worse if someone near us is doing well. But two problems arise: 1) You can choose to ignore what other people are doing, or even more, if you're a selfless person, you can even be happy for other people's well being. And 2) as an omnipotent being, God could do anything to increase suffering, without others having a good time. As for your other comment, the judeo-christian view is that God didn't create us for his own happiness, but we were created to share in God's love. He doesn't need us, but we need him. | |
| Jul 2 at 12:28 | comment | added | MisterMiyagi | "Also, if God is a perfect being in himself, meaning he is self-sufficient, he doesn't need anything, so he wouldn't benefit from torturing anyone." Wouldn't this apply to everything God creates or does? He wouldn't benefit from making people just, or good, or excluding them from Heaven, or guiding them in their life, or ... | |
| Jul 2 at 12:25 | comment | added | MisterMiyagi | "If you think about God as an omnipotent being, then, if he was truly evil, he would optimize for the maximum suffering, without any happiness or peace for anyone." I don't think this is obvious. Isn't suffering increased by the contrast to others' wellbeing? What power would Hell have if those imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven? | |
| Jul 2 at 11:15 | history | edited | bauerdavid | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added another perspective
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| S Jul 2 at 10:57 | review | First answers | |||
| Jul 2 at 15:58 | |||||
| S Jul 2 at 10:57 | history | answered | bauerdavid | CC BY-SA 4.0 |