Psience Quest

I notice that there seems to be a seething anger about the nasty things that happen in the Universe, among a significant number of people, which God often bears the brunt of. 

Is this justified?

Some say... (not a fan of top gear)

...it's the nasty things that happen in the universe. Like getting your head chopped off or children starving in Yemen etc.

What I'm getting at, is that I saw a lot of posts that seemed to blame God for the nasty things that are mostly man's doing. Or questioning the existence of a loving God while such things existed. I don't have any such doubts while of course acknowledging 'evil' appears to exist. 

To me the doubt arises in what form this 'God' takes. I am a believer in something, I've just no idea what it is. 

Ok then. What about tsunamis or volcano's etc?

Despite all the nasty things that happen, isn't the almost infinite capacity people have to love amazing? And also the many different ways and things we can love. We can love romantically. We can love our parents, children, siblings, other relatives and people. We can love animals, pets, and wild animals and nature. Etc. Maybe we are here not just to learn to love but to savor the different nuances of different kinds of love? Does that exist in the non physical realm? Maybe it is best learned in the physical?

(2017-08-27, 05:22 PM)Stan Woolley Wrote: [ -> ]Ok then. What about tsunamis or volcano's etc?

Volcanos are in large part responsible for the creation of the physical world as we know it. Is that a bad thing?

More to the point: I find it nearly impossible to define something that is "evil". These things are too culturally biased. Is killing another person always bad? is killing a cow bad? Is cutting down a tree bad? All these things involve the ending of a life of some kind. Why is one bad and another good? 

Alex came to the conclusion that somethings are objectively bad,,, such as child abuse. I find this view ethnocentric BS. I don't believe there is anything that is 100% undeniably evil from all perspectives. These things are way too complex to make such absolute pronouncements.

Perhaps lessons were learned from some "evil" event by various people, or entities, or consciousness in general, that advanced the species in some "butterfly effect" way. Who's to say? 

I avoid labeling things in such ways because I know I have but a infinitesimal view of the entirety of creation. 

And in any case, it has yet to be demonstrated to me that "God" ever intervenes in this universe that he supposedly created, nor do I understand why he would,, this of course presupposing that "he" exists, and that "he" could.

As I see it, this question is a subjectively religious issue.
There cannot be any objective description of god. Each man has his own ideas of what it is. And as it is his own, he does with it as he likes.
Their preference tend to be that their god's attributes are positive, rather than what is considered by them to be negative and bad.

They are skeptics in as much that they reject the things they don't like.

...and do you mean 'the bad things that happen or that people do' or something that exists in its own right?

(2017-08-28, 12:08 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for the two examples that you find evil... but what is evil... how is evil defined?

When I've looked at examples people give, I've often found that they are relative... that is what is evil from one persons perspective, is not evil from another persons perspective. So I've struggled to define what evil actually is... the stuff I think of as evil is stuff like what Fred & Rose West did to those poor girls...

I think Laird used a similar example as this to show me an example of what 'evil' really is, when we were talking about this previously. And who would disagree? I can't even read or watch programmes about that sort of thing, as they are too upsetting.

One definition of evil that I've found is: 'Profoundly immoral and wicked'. 

People's ideas of what that may be will no doubt include a wide spectrum of ideas. If 'such an act' is carried out by an individual or group of humans then I can see why they might be blamed, but in reality, there may be much more to it where 'blame' is concerned. Is a tsunami or an erupting volcano 'profoundly immoral and wicked' ? Or are their consequences, when they kill innocent people and animals?

We humans often blame God, when we can find nothing else to explain our frustration and anger with such 'evil'. As Jkmac has written, I too find little evidence that God intervenes in earthly business directly. In my mind it would be just as easy to set things up and leave it to run independently, the consequences of learning wisdom and love being in stark contrast to fear and ignorance. It seemed weird to me how Stephen Fry could get himself so worked up about God, when he supposedly doesn't believe in such a thing.



If we could really see how our actions and reactions truly work, how the consequences of them ripple out in surprising and unexpected ways. Even Fry's video above would have produced huge ripples, when individuals seeing it all had their own emotional reaction to it, mostly negative I believe. I mean negative overall. They might have agreed strongly with him, or viewed his opinion in a 'positive' way. 

I think it's all so intriguing. Awe inspiring. This is part of the reason that I think there might indeed be a God, because I see such emotions as meaningful. It's like God is willing us to 'see what really works', he's given us an amazing place to play. Will we play nice?