Why do most people assume God is benevolent?

[logician]

If the assumption is that there is some god, that god is not bound by any of our constraints or ideas of what is considered to be "benevolence" or malevolence" i.e. strictly human inventions.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

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

Problem is God saves no-one. You save yourself or someone does. God is there and always was (to me) but does not control every aspect of our life.

It's free will.

 

[sojourner]

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

And God is responsible for that ... how?
God is responsible for eliminating it ... why?

 

[Kathryn]

If the assumption is that there is some god, that god is not bound by any of our constraints or ideas of what is considered to be "benevolence" or malevolence" i.e. strictly human inventions.

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle -

An atheist hit the nail on the head.

Give me a minute and I can come up with more pithy phrases!

Like - politics makes strange bedfellows. Or...

Even a blind hog finds an acorn sometimes...

 

[Katzpur]

I believe God is benevolent because I believe He created our Earth and placed us here for a purpose that was 100% selfless. I believe that what He wants more than anything is for us to be able to return to His presence, live forever with our loved ones and become like Him. Mormons believe that "Men are that they might have joy."

 

[The-G-man]

I believe God is benevolent because I believe He created our Earth and placed us here for a purpose that was 100% selfless. I believe that what He wants more than anything is for us to be able to return to His presence, live forever with our loved ones and become like Him. Mormons believe that "Men are that they might have joy."

If it was 100% selfless then why has he gave us a rule book and told us to believe or go to hell, does not sound like a selfless act to me.

 

[Katzpur]

If it was 100% selfless then why has he gave us a rule book and told us to believe or go to hell, does not sound like a selfless act to me.

G-man. He gave us a rule book to help us be better people, but I don't believe that He sends non-believers to Hell.

 

[cottage]

And God is responsible for that ... how?
God is responsible for eliminating it ... why?

I'll answer that by quoting a theist, St Thomas Aquinas:

"Just as God not only gave being to things when they first began, but is also the cause of their being as long as they last...so he not only gave things their operative powers when they were first created, but is always the cause of these in things. Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop. Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to him as a cause." (Summa contra Gentiles, III, 67).

 

[cottage]

Problem is God saves no-one. You save yourself or someone does. God is there and always was (to me) but does not control every aspect of our life.

It's free will.

That's a perfectly okay position, and not in anyway illogical...but it (free will) confirms that there is no benevolent God!

Cottage

 

[MoonWater]

That's a perfectly okay position, and not in anyway illogical...but it (free will) confirms that there is no benevolent God!

Cottage

how so?

 

[Enoch07]

He isn't though. That was the point, hes benevolent if you accept his rules which isn't really benevolent.

God's law applies whether you believe in Him or not. You may feel like your getting away with something by ignoring it. But your not.

 

[cottage]

If the assumption is that there is some god, that god is not bound by any of our constraints or ideas of what is considered to be "benevolence" or malevolence" i.e. strictly human inventions.

I'm sorry, but I must disagree. If we're saying God is benevolent or malevolent (quite regardless of whether there is such a Being) then by definition he/it is constrained by the meaning of those terms.

Cottage

 

[rojse]

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.

No presumption on the question of whether God has to be benevolent or not. Plenty of religions have not gone for such simplistic ideas.

And since most people have put some thought into their religious beliefs, and do not have completely orthodox ideas, I wondered why idea this was not challenged very often.

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.

Morality does not merely come from religion, and I have seen quite well-reasoned moral ideas, too. But that has little to do with this discussion, but I would be interested in discussing this in another thread.

 

[rojse]

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

Why? Just to argue against myself for a moment, perhaps the morality that God has is quite beyond our comprehension, and all that God does is good, even if we are unable to appreciate this fact, not being impassive observers.

 

[rojse]

Yahew is not benevolent. He doesn't even claim to be.

Why is there a contradiction between Yaweh's claims and the claims of his followers, then?

 

[rojse]

Ok, so....

Which benefaction you deny that it is From God?

I am not debating the Quran with you. I am debating the presumption of benevolence of God, and again, you have not addressed this question.

Go ask this elsewhere, because I am not interested in responding to that question, and this is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

 

[rojse]

You're here, aren't you.

And this single datum is enough to prove the complete and utter goodness of God, even were we to make a quite large presupposition that this also proves that God exists?

 

[Alla Prima]

Every moment of this life is suffering (see Buddhism's 3 types of suffering) so if a God were to exist he'd be a sadist.

 

[Alla Prima]

You're here, aren't you.

I can imagine far far better places to be. Can't you?

 

[Rakhel]

I had always wondered why people said "why me?" I think the better question would be "Why not me?"