Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but can you explain why omnipotence requires responsibility? Isn't that another way of saying humans are humans (regardless)? Jan.
Mine worship me As long as I keep feeding them But I know when I die and stop feeding them they will turn on me that moment and feast on my remains Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Naturally, the more power & control someone has, the more responsible they are for the results of what they do. Ultimate power & control would mean ultimate responsibility. The god portrayed in the Christian bible expects humans to be other than what it created & is perpetually pissed off about it. It blames humans for being human. <>
If you are an atheist who assumes there is no God, how can that which does not exist, create evil? Evil needs to come from something that exists. If you believe that God exists, then the God is evil argument could follow logically. If an atheist says god is evil, they either don't know how to reason or they secretly believe in God but due to peer pressure have to accept only the worse side or be subjected to evil. Evil comes from free will and choice in the light of short term thinking. Nature and instinct is not about free will and choice, since many things have to coordinate in space and time over the long term. Free will allows one to break away from the integration of nature, doing so in the short term. Free will can be used for good or for evil. We can use will to make medicines that do not exist naturally. Or we can engage in unnatural behavior that would be disruptive to the long term health of a species. Evil tends to be resource intensive, which is why it is not natural. Natural is about efficiency. Short term thinking, by breaking ties with the long term plan, creates inefficiencies. For example, say I choose to tell a lie. This may be easy for me in terms of resources. However, it can take a lot of mental resources for others to unravel the deception. It may have a ripple affect that may result in others having to expend energy defending the truth or trying to find the truth. It is very wasteful and therefore not natural. It is not part of natural selection due to the wasted motion. The truth is does not carry the same amount of baggage, but can be used as a building block. A good God is an extrapolation of natural; integrated long term efficiency. A bod god is more like an evil human who is short sighted. If you look at the Old Testament, can you show anything God did that was evil, that humans could not also do? The good that God does is often beyond what human can do; create the universe or peace among adversaries. Evil has a connection to human choices.
1) You're actually quoting me/arguing with something I posted out of boredom. 2) You're lucky I'm eating kosher bacon right now so my attention is elsewhere.
As with all atheists here, we usually argue as Devil's Advocate - i.e. we suspend our personal convictions and suppose, for the sake of discussion, that God were to exist. Because, frankly, responding to every argument tabled with 'God doesn't exist. The end.' would be, as Bw/S says, boring. It also goes without saying that, (except for something weird) all atheists believe that evil is a human creation.
