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From: dap@ihopa.UUCP (afsd)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: What should God be like?
Message-ID: <156@ihopa.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Feb-84 23:53:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ihopa.156
Posted: Sun Feb 12 23:53:36 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Feb-84 01:32:51 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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Gary,

I would like to respond to your questions on what God should be like.

>>1.  God should in no way restrict the human right to make free
>>    choices, or, through threats or bribes, attempt to impose
>>    his will on others; BUT God should not allow war, murder,
>>    rape, theft, or tailgating.
Personally, I wouldn't mind it at all if God restricted the "human right to
make free choices" if that right includes the freedom to "choose" to rape,
murder, start wars, steal or tailgate.  I don't consider these as "human
rights" and I think that the fact that most people endorse some kind of
police force indicates that this is general opinion.  I think that you have
seen people claim that omniscience implies a lack of free will and interpreted
this to mean that those people were criticizing God for limiting our free
choice.  I can't speak for others, but this is not true in my case.  I point
out the fact simply to emphasize that the Christian view of an omniscient
God who allows free will is self contradictory.  I don't take much stock in
free will with or without a God, so a God who "restricts" us to not rape or
murder doesn't bother me in the least.

>>2.  God should have made the world a much nicer, safer place in
>>    which to live.  Earthquakes, violent storms, sickness, and
>>    hangnails simply have no place in a perfect world; BUT God
>>    must provide challenges to be overcome and problems to be
>>    solved, or humans will become too bored.
I'm sorry, but if God supplied earthquakes, violent storms, sickness and
hangnails just to occupy my mind, I am more than willing for him to remove
these challenges and work on Fermat's theorem instead.  There's plenty to
think about without natural catastrophes to titillate us.

>>3.  God must regularly provide miracles to prove his existence to
>>    skeptics; BUT God must not interfere with the orderly course
>>    of events, since that would make scientific knowledge impossible.
>>    (Regular miracles would also make it impossible to distinguish
>>    between the miraculous and the normal.)
Once again, if God wanted to occasionally miraculously avert a volcanic
flow, that really wouldn't bother me a bit.  Maybe he could label all
miracles with the assurance that the event is a bona fide miracle and should
not be dealt with scientifically.  Also, he could assure us that anything
not labelled as a miracle would be a natural phenomena which could be
understood with the scientific method.

Now, Gary, I would like to ask you a few questions.

1.  You imply that a perfect world and a free will is incompatible.
What do you think Heaven is like?  Is God going to allow murder, rape and
wars there in order to allow freedom of choice or is he going to take away
your "human right to make decisions"?

2.  You also imply that a perfect world is incompatible with an interesting
world.  Again, the question comes to mind: Is heaven really boring or is God
going to "spice it up" with a few occasional earthquakes and other assorted
natural disasters?

3.  Another implication you make is that the scientific method is incompatible
with miracles.  I have to agree here which is why I have trouble swallowing
creationism, but I assume that you believe in miracles.  Does this imply that
you don't believe anything that is backed up by hard science?  Does logic go
down the toilet when we believe in God (a lot of people would answer "yes"
here)?  Maybe pennies should really always land on "heads" but God is causing
them to miraculously land on "tails" about half the time.  This would be one
of the "undistinguishable" miracles you refer to.  What evidence do you have
that this isn't the case?  If you have no evidence to show this isn't the
case, then I would agree, God's existence does negate anything we might
come up with through hard science.  An extreme example of this is the
"compact divine intervention" which some people have touted as the way out
of the creationist's dilemma.  If this "theory" is correct, then it certainly
seems plausible that God could be causing the "miracle of the tails" also.
In other words, we can never again believe anything we see.

4.  In the end, you are claiming that God is limited in suggesting that there
are expectations we can have of God which he simply cannot fulfill.  How does
this jibe with an omnipotent God?  This relates to the earlier questions.  Is
God actually powerless to provide a perfect heaven?  If so, just how powerful
is he?  What CAN he provide?

Finally, I think that your questions point out some inconsistencies in your
own thinking but I fail to see how these questions are the damning evidence
against athiesm/agnosticism which you apparently mean them to be.  If I don't
believe in God in the first place, it might very well be that I agree perfectly
with your statements that if there WERE a God, he would inevitably fail my
expectations in some way.  So what?  I think your points raise some hard
questions for Christians to answer, but I don't see why atheists are obligated
to respond to them in order to be logically consistent.