An Evil God

[Aloysius]

yeah, the point is not to debate whether the God we believe in is good or evil, though I think there may be appropriate asides made about what we think about God as we believe in him, those should just be asides to the topic. I don't want to debate the scriptures here, but suffice it to say if Jesus Christ were to appear to me and tell me to go randomly kill some guy for no good reason, or feed a child to a bear for having teased someone about a bald head, I would refuse and say "go away Satan, I know that you appear as an angel of light to deceive". the circumstances of all these bible stories are debateable for other threads, of course, and the lessons they teach and their proper meaning and all that can be discussed, but this is not a thread about the God of the scriptures, this is a thread about a bona fide evil god, that all of us Christians who do not see the things you have cited as activities that would be moral to do (again, we could debate the morality of those historical events, the nature of those stories, and the lessons they were meant to teach) would recognize as evil.

so yeah, I believe in a God who doesn't command murder or rape or genocide or lying or stealing; but what if there were a god who did indeed command murder and rape and genocide. I'm not interested in your view that the god of scriptures theoretically commands evil things in the stories of the Hebrew people, let's ignore the stories of the Hebrew people for a moment.

here's the scenario: you show up before the massive golden gate in the clouds and a booming voice announces that if you go back to earth and slaughter three innocent babies, then throw their souls into an eternal hell of torture from which they will never escape, then you get to come into paradise and enjoy eternal happiness. if you refuse to do that, you must suffer eternal suffering yourself. clear-cut scenario, we all recognize that the being with the booming voice is evil (though maybe Abram would've gone back after those babies because he really wanted to add an h to his name, right? haha, but I digress, didn't mean to open up a debate about the story of the sacrifice of Isaac and what it teaches about faith and what not and how it prefigures Christ, since no one should ever think that God is calling them to kill their child, or any child; we don't believe in a God who would ever want us to kill our children)

Edited August 9, 2011 by Aloysius

[stevil]

So you are choosing to do good irregardless of god.
You are believing in a good god irregardless of the true nature of a god that may actually exist.

This is probably similar to atheists who choose to do what they personally deem to be good, irregardless of what any scriptures or religions teach.
We are not that different from each other (atheists and theists), although there are many misconceptions on both sides of the fence. I am sure you know about Atheists that live a very selfish life and I have heard of Christians that do bad things in the name of their god, we tend to focus on our differences rather than our similarities and we tend to create characatures of people belonging to groups that we are not familiar with.

An evil god, I certainly would not do what I am told if it compromises my personal values. Even if a good god wanted me to compromise, i would not. But I still maintain that it might be very difficult to know if a god is good or evil.

[Aloysius]

indeed, it is good to have some common moral ground, this crazy radical hypotethetical presumes a certain common ground between some atheists and some theists, which is why I thought it might be an interesting topsy-turvy kind of discussion.

"But I still maintain that it might be very difficult to know if a god is good or evil. "
valid point. I did of course pick outrageous examples to illustrate without a doubt that the god in this scenario was definitely evil. there are more controversial issues where it'd be harder to tell; I'd hope I would have the humility to re-evaluate my position on some less obvious issue if I approached the heavenly gates to discover that an all-good all-powerful God disagreed with me; there must be some mixture between the courage of one's convictions and the humility to recognize one's own limited ability to know things. there's a fine line between conviction and stubbornness sometimes.

anyway, so what you're saying is that you'd face eternal suffering and abandon all hope for the sake of your personal convictions. I admire that, but what a choice that would be. earlier it was said that there are many examples of self-sacrificial behavior for the greater good, but that self sacrificial behavior generally was done with the belief that it would either bring that person to an eternal reward (heaven), or at least to an eternal rest (oblivion); what kind of strength would it take to sacrifice yourself with full knowledge it would bring you to eternal hopeless torture?

[Aloysius]

and yes, before anyone beats me to it, this is indeed a Kobiyashi Maru of theodicy.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Aloysius

[Papist]

If the all loving and merciful God did not exist, then why not be evil?

[Aloysius]

I believe in God because I believe in the good; if there were no good God, I think I'd still want to believe in goodness. I'd still want to love others, hopefully. I'd still think it was self-destructive to be selfish, that it was admirable to be heroic and helpful, and that killing innocent people is wrong.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1312893804' post='2284700']
If the all loving and merciful God did not exist, then why not be evil?
[/quote]
The host of natural reasons for behaving in a way that is fair, congenial, socially healthy, and good. Good things such as altruism, empathy, and natural virtue are not dependent upon a monotheistic worldview and are desirable in spite of one's take on the supernatural. No?

[Papist]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1312894474' post='2284705']
The host of natural reasons for behaving in a way that is fair, congenial, socially healthy, and good. Good things such as altruism, empathy, and natural virtue are not dependent upon a monotheistic worldview and are desirable in spite of one's take on the supernatural. No?
[/quote]
No. I don't see it like that. If all that existed is an evil god, we would not know good. People are responding as you did b/c in real life there exist an all loving and merciful God. But if one never existed, they would not know such things.

[sixpence]

1. I expect that if I grew up in a world created by an evil god, that I would not have the same concept of morality that I do now. Therefore, I probably would not regard this god as "evil".
2. Would an evil god really give people free will?
3. i hate the "word" irregardless

[Aloysius]

we have a good God and yet there is evil in the world. perhaps this evil god permits good to be in the world, basically because if there wasn't anything good in the world, he wouldn't have anything to mess with in evil ways. so we all grow up in a relatively similar world, but the evil god directly does evil things to puppies and children without a greater good in mind, arbitrarily tortures people who don't deserve it for eternity in his hell. so basically you still look around you and see that there is goodness in nature and in babies' laughter and in saving a kitten from a fire, but the god in charge of it all is evil.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1312894996' post='2284706']
No. I don't see it like that. If all that existed is an evil god, we would not know good. People are responding as you did b/c in real life there exist an all loving and merciful God. But if one never existed, they would not know such things.
[/quote]
If reality was based upon an evil deity the good might just be a play thing. Hope, love, life, goodness--perhaps it's all part of a sadistic game. Like when a torturer gives a captive false hope in their release simply for the sake of violently dashing that hope and seeing the despair.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1312895343' post='2284709']
we have a good God and yet there is evil in the world. perhaps this evil god permits good to be in the world, basically because if there wasn't anything good in the world, he wouldn't have anything to mess with in evil ways. so we all grow up in a relatively similar world, but the evil god directly does evil things to puppies and children without a greater good in mind, arbitrarily tortures people who don't deserve it for eternity in his hell. so basically you still look around you and see that there is goodness in nature and in babies' laughter and in saving a kitten from a fire, but the god in charge of it all is evil.
[/quote]
Saw this after I posted. My bad.

[Aloysius]

lol we seem to be on the same wavelength.

[Papist]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1312895343' post='2284709']
we have a good God and yet there is evil in the world. perhaps this evil god permits good to be in the world, basically because if there wasn't anything good in the world, he wouldn't have anything to mess with in evil ways. so we all grow up in a relatively similar world, but the evil god directly does evil things to puppies and children without a greater good in mind, arbitrarily tortures people who don't deserve it for eternity in his hell. so basically you still look around you and see that there is goodness in nature and in babies' laughter and in saving a kitten from a fire, but the god in charge of it all is evil.
[/quote]
What would be the source of this good in the world?

[Aloysius]

the rebellion of Ada and Steve who refused to eat from the forbidden tree brought goodness into the world.

lol, jk, let's not get too detailed (though I was kind of thinking this might be an interesting topic of a novel, but ultimately it'd be too dark I think) basically the whole universe is precisely the same except that the will of god is for evil to be done. the evil god created everything, he created good because he needed good things in order to do great amounts of evil to them (because it's not nearly as evil if you're doing evil things to evil things). basically all the trees and flowers and woodland creatures are all still there; and trees and flowers and woodland creatures are all good things, even to an atheist, and even in a world where there was an evil god who hated those things.