Movie: "God on Trial"

No, you're right. The problem of theodicy is hardly revolutionary.What's always surprising is how believers can't muster an adequate response to it - indeed, they rarely feel like they need to do so, or do anything but marshal the same tired, debunked excuses, like you did. Because there is no full-throated defense, Iano. Theodicy cannot be satisfactorily defended against. It's exactly like how all the supposedly sophisticated theists believe there's an intellectual defense for the existence of God - "Oh, I'm sure that there's an intellectual argument for the existence of God, Crash; it's just that I can't tell you what it is. I mean I didn't need it; I believe on the basis of faith. But I'm absolutely sure somebody made it, once. Can't quite recall the details. Why don't you ask the theist to my left? I think he knows what it is." "What? No, I believe on the basis of faith as well. Ask the guy to my left, though, I'm sure he knows." And so on.It's simply an article of your faith that theodicy can be defended against. The truth is, there's no reconciling the fact of the Holocaust with the putative existence of a benevolent and omnipotent creator God; you just think it can be reconciled, as an article of your faith.

Well, it doesn't. Slaying the sinful isn't benevolent, it's malevolent, since all men are sinners. But if you believe in a God who wants to kill everyone, that's similarly indefensible - God cannot be omnipotent and malevolent, since men continue to live. Well, I guess one problem would be that he doesn't. Many who do great evil enjoy long and prosperous lives.If you believe in a different God than the one the theodicy argument is meant to attack, I guess that's a very clever dodge, but your God has its own logical weaknesses. I'm not sure they're on topic in this thread, however; the God on trial in "God on Trial" is benevolent and omnipotent, as traditionally conceived.

You're right; there's no reason to believe in the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God. Whether or not that's a "strawgod" seems debatable - maybe that's not the God that you believe in but belief in such a deity is certainly widespread, wouldn't you agree?When we talk about "God", are we always necessarily talking about the God you, specifically, believe in? Why would that be reasonable? I mean sometimes we're not even talking to you, Iano, if you can believe that. "Sanction" is what humans do to people who commit crimes; the reason we sanction criminals is because we don't know how to restrain them prior to their criminal acts without harming people who aren't going to commit crimes.But God isn't limited in that way. A just God would make sin impossible, not sanction sinners. To do otherwise is a serious injustice to the victims of those who do evil unto others. People who are getting murdered would rather have not been killed, they don't care about the notion of murders being subject to divine justice years or even decades after the fact. God could make it that knives directed towards human bodies to do harm turn instantly to harmless gas, that guns leveled at human targets refuse to fire, that bludgeons aimed towards human craniums instantly grew soft, fun Nerf padding. That conveniently sidesteps the problem of human choice - people could still choose to do evil to each other, they could point guns and fire them with the intent to kill - they just wouldn't be able to do so. Even if the outcome isn't what you wanted you still freely made the choice. Nobody is guaranteed outcomes anyway, just choices. Killing all human beings?You don't view that as malevolent? Is it possible that you're an immoral person, Iano? Perhaps you don't see the desire to extinguish all human life as malevolent because you yourself are a sociopath. You believe in a God who desires the death of sinners. But all men are sinners - therefore God desires the death of all men.How could that not be malevolent? So God suborns justice to His own ends, and you consider him just? That makes no sense. It's certainly a compelling case against the benevolence of God. But to answer your question - the way they overlook it is that they don't bother to read it. The vast majority of your co-religionists have not ever read your religion's scriptures. Their conception of God comes from the dishonest marketing your religious leaders engage in, because it's difficult to win converts to the worship of a God of evil.

No, I think it's probative for you to address the question - are benevolence and omnipotence widely-held characterizations of God or aren't they?I'm prepared to address your God, too, I just want you on the record about this. Well, but I already addressed this. Free will means choosing to do evil, not that evil is done. Free will only guarantees freedom of choice, it doesn't guarantee any particular outcome. You may choose to murder a child, but that doesn't mean your choice has to result in the death of a child - maybe the cops get to you first. Or maybe they don't. In the latter case, a just God would certainly intervene - not to provide justice to the criminal, but to the victim. Because that's not justice. As a perfectly free expression of their will, same as now. Nobody's guaranteed outcomes, and it's particularly perverse to suggest, as you have, uniquely those who are choosing to do evil are somehow so important that they should be guaranteed no interference in that outcome. What about those who choose to cure diseases that stubbornly refuse to submit to treatment? What about those who choose to battle endemic poverty that refuses to be ameliorated? Why is it only the evildoers whose free will can brook no interference?That's neither justice nor freedom. Not at all. Free will is a matter of freedom of choice, not expression. Nobody's guaranteed an outcome; just a choice. Right, and in this case I'm making a reasoned argument that you may not be qualified to assess the moral nature of wanting to extinguish all human life. Well, no.

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Malevolent : productive of harm or evil

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Well, I'm irritated by the great and transparent scam of religion any time the subject comes up. But "patent nonsense"? No, the ironclad result of research:

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It's clear that many Americans -- including Christians - don't know their Bible. Just look at the numbers from a recent study:

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More than 60 percent of Americans can't name either half of the Ten Commandments or the four Gospels of the New Testament.
Some 80 percent including "born again" Christians believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is a direct quote from the Bible.
And 31 percent believe a good person can earn his/her way into heaven.

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http://www.cbn.com/...u-Know-Your-Bible-Many-Christians-DontOr from a more credible source:

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Time magazine observed in a 2007 cover story that only half of U.S. adults could name one of the four Gospels. Fewer than half could identify Genesis as the Bible's first book. Jay Leno and Stephen Colbert have made sport of Americans' inability to name the Ten Commandmentseven among members of Congress who have pushed to have them posted publicly.
Perhaps the first step toward improved Bible literacy is admitting we have a problem. A 2005 study by the Barna Group asked American Christians to rate their spiritual maturity based on activities such as worship, service, and evangelism. Christians offered the harshest evaluation of their Bible knowledge, with 25 percent calling themselves not too mature or not at all mature.

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http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/may/25.38.htmlI'm sorry, Iano, but calling something every Christian knows is true "nonsense" indicates that you're the one tired of debate, not me. I'm sorry that's the case. Maybe you're tired of fending off replies from so many of us? I suspect I would be.

Well, they are. To whatever extent God is wrathful, it's only as a failure to be benevolent. I doubt it as well, simply because the Biblical God is incompatible with theodicies. So there's no such thing as an attempted sin? That clearly can't be the case; when a credible threat emerges against your life, for instance, the police hardly put their feet up and claim they can't do anything about it until they actually succeed in killing you.Moreover your position is anti-Biblical:

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Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. 29And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

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Clearly the Bible views the intent to sin as precisely the same as the sin itself - you don't get any credit with God for having the intent to sin but not the opportunity, so there's no reason not to expect a benevolent, just God to intervene and prevent the commission of immoral actions after human beings have exercised their free choice to make immoral decisions. I don't know what it's like in Ireland but in the US the penalties are, in fact, the same - attempted murder has the same penalty as murder. No, his benevolent and just nature, supposedly, would result in him being required to intervene against evil at all times. Every single time, because he can intervene every single time.There's no intervention by God because there is no God (in my case) or because God is not benevolent and just (your case.) And can the dead be saved? If your God's most important purpose is the salvation of individuals then he should be forstalling murders simply to give people the greatest possible opportunity for salvation. But instead we see the deaths of children, frequently the violent deaths of children, well before they've had any opportunity at all for salvation. How much better would it have been, though, to have no famine at all nor evil actions by the brothers of Joseph! Well, you frequently don't seem to. I mean, you made an argument directly at odds with the clear meaning Matthew 5. Perhaps the learned theologians you refer to are better Biblical scholars than you, but for the most part, they just disregard the parts that they can't reconcile with a benevolent God.