sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Only when she's suffering PMS (Piously Manifested Snobbery).
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Why do most people assume God is benevolent?
- Thread starter rojse
- Start date
I think lots of people assume that God is benevolent because that's how their religion has defined Him. I was thinking maybe your question was implying also, does God have to be benevolent. I'd say no, not necessarily. It would just depend on what type of God, God would be and we could just as easily have a not so good or a malevolent one.
I also believe that all moral standards are assumptuous when it comes to what they mention and what their source is, and whether or not that makes those standards objective or the right ones to be followed. If there are objective morals to begin with that is.
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If I may return to the above question asked by Rojse, which began this thread, I have to say I find it perplexing that people can make such an assumption. Of course I understand folk wanting there to be such a Being but the very concept is self-evidently contradicted in experience. So while the Supreme Being can logically be malevolent or amoral it plainly cannot be loving or benevolent. Why should we imagine otherwise? Puzzling!
Cottage
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
How so? How is the concept contradicted in experience?
Don Penguinoini
Modi.
Because he/she is.
Most religious assumptions on this website are based on Christianity due to a lot of peoples ignorance of religion outside Christianity. Not good...
Most religious assumptions on this website are based on Christianity due to a lot of peoples ignorance of religion outside Christianity. Not good...
GiGi Lindsey
Member
Yahew is not benevolent. He doesn't even claim to be.
mohammed_beiruti
Active Member
How? Well, I'm fairly sure you don't need me to post an endless list of all the suffering that exists in the world, a single example of which proves the contradiction.
Cottage
GiGi Lindsey
Member
He didn't say which god. I only commented on one. If he wants a better answer, he must be more specific.
Because it is a logical contradiction. If, for example, a hundred people are trapped in a burning building, and only one person is saved by the Supreme Being, then there is an absence of benevolence in 99 cases. So, if the Deity is sometimes benevolent, sometimes not, then he/it cannot by definition be an all-loving or omnibenevolent Being. And it is that conception that happens to fit perfectly with experience (whether or not there is such a Being)!
Cottage
You're here, aren't you.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
I still don't think most folks give it much thought, but since that hasn't sparked much response, I'll answer for those that do.
Personally, I have faith that God is good because of my theophany (you're shocked, I know
). It was just beautiful, so glorious, so... right. That said, the faith didn't come immediately. Things didn't make sense back then, but I did the best I could.
For those who lack personal experience, I think it's a comfort thing. The idea that God is malevolent is scary.
ETA:
Personally, I have faith that God is good because of my theophany (you're shocked, I know
). It was just beautiful, so glorious, so... right. That said, the faith didn't come immediately. Things didn't make sense back then, but I did the best I could.For those who lack personal experience, I think it's a comfort thing. The idea that God is malevolent is scary.
ETA:
I had to go to the dentist yeterday, but between my music and the nitrous, it wasn't so bad.
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
LOL, Storm - good dentists are worth their weight in gold!
I had my teeth and gums knocked out in an accident when I was a teenager. I have spent probably hundreds of hours in a dentist's chair, and with oral surgeons. IT SUCKED!!!!!!
But they can sure work miracles. Now you can't even tell my mouth was shredded!
I had my teeth and gums knocked out in an accident when I was a teenager. I have spent probably hundreds of hours in a dentist's chair, and with oral surgeons. IT SUCKED!!!!!!
But they can sure work miracles. Now you can't even tell my mouth was shredded!
gnomon
Well-Known Member
I wonder this as well since a benevolent God is not really part of any Western pagan tradition, Middle East tradition (excepting Zoroastrianism) or Eastern tradition.
The gods were always aloof, hardly caring and within some mythologies human beings were nothing more than chattel for the gods. The traditions were built around xenophobic tribes who would elevate one god over others while defining that god as openly hostile, in some instances, to those outside the tribal group.
I think too many people take what had become the Christian concept of god and misapply it across all religions.
The-G-man
De Facto Atheist
CS Lewis also said
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”