If god is love, how can the world have so much hate?

PieMistress said:
So by that logic, are you saying he exists? Because from here, it looks like you're saying he is the subject that applies to permanence. And I'm pretty sure that, in order to be a subject, you have to exist.
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No. The exact opposite. You, like all theists, presuppose your conclusions. I understand. It's hard not to when talking about a fantasy.

If you say that X exists, and then, without conclusively demonstrating the existence of X, begin to assign attributes to X, you've made a bit of a logical boo-boo, wouldn't you say?

You say X does Y. I say Y is a random result and therefore has zero corellation with your theorized X. You then say that an attribute of X is it's permanence or some other nonsense.

See?
 
Would you believe me if I told you I have never once spoken to a religious leader; the only things I've seen regarding religion have been found on the internet and in the bible itself.

Quote me for eternity: I admit that, as you say, the concept of faith was designed to get the less intellectual to follow the religion - the ones that blindly have faith in everything the church says are not too intelligent. Whatever works for them, I guess. There are some, however, that do not live and breathe off of all the words that preachers and the like say, because preachers don't know everything. They are human and are also prone and entitled to mistakes.

Allow me to rephrase myself... Faith. As in: I accept that God has decided not to slave for me and answer on my every whim. I accept that he is there, because of faith that since he has responded to me before, that he's just choosing to ignore stupid things I say/do.
 
superluminal said:
No. The exact opposite. You, like all theists, presuppose your conclusions. I understand. It's hard not to when talking about a fantasy.

If you say that X exists, and then, without conclusively demonstrating the existence of X, begin to assign attributes to X, you've made a bit of a logical boo-boo, wouldn't you say?

You say X does Y. I say Y is a random result and therefore has zero corellation with your theorized X. You then say that an attribute of X is it's permanence or some other nonsense.

See?
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Let's see if I can follow this.

I'm saying that X exists. I cannot demonstrate the existence of X (call it blind faith if you wish, that's fine), and I begin to assign attributes to X. Only, you skipped a few parts of me assigning these attributes to X. If Z contains a list of the attributes, presented in a figurative form left to the interpretation of the reader, is it not logical to thereby place the attributes on X?

X does Y. Alright. To you, Y is a random result and therefore has no correlation with X.

Random results can, over time, become qualities. Throwing away the variables for a moment: God loves Jane. To a person, God loving Jane is a random result, and therefore has no correlation with God. If God loved Jane and Patrick, then we could say there was a pattern, and therefore say God is a loving being, could we not?
 
PieMistress said:
I accept that he is there, because of faith that since he has responded to me before
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You have no reason to think this. Whatever you think "he" responded to was your mind assigning a cause where there was no effect.

If 1 million people "pray" for help of some kind, and 1000 people get what they need (that's 0.1% - highly statistically insignificant) what do you think those 1000 people might think? If they were presented with the numbers, do you think they'd be suprised that some small fraction of a percent of people got what they wanted? Just by chance? Especially knowing how vague the requests for help can be and how easy it is to fit the result to your request?

What they'd think is, (being dullards for the most part) is "Hey! God picked me out of a million people to help! How nice god is!".

So we're all doomed to wallow in this kind of stupidity. Right?
 
PieMistress said:
Let's see if I can follow this.

I'm saying that X exists. I cannot demonstrate the existence of X (call it blind faith if you wish, that's fine), and I begin to assign attributes to X. Only, you skipped a few parts of me assigning these attributes to X. If Z contains a list of the attributes, presented in a figurative form left to the interpretation of the reader, is it not logical to thereby place the attributes on X?

X does Y. Alright. To you, Y is a random result and therefore has no correlation with X.

Random results can, over time, become qualities. Throwing away the variables for a moment: God loves Jane. To a person, God loving Jane is a random result, and therefore has no correlation with God. If God loved Jane and Patrick, then we could say there was a pattern, and therefore say God is a loving being, could we not?
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Sorry, but you have no background in logical analysis, do you? Just curious. Your analysis is completely wrong.
 
PieMistress,

When trying to prove the existence of X, you must first demonstrate that claims made for X are unique to X and not background noise or experimental error. The effects of X must be repeatable, statistically significant, and unique to X.
 
No. I have no experience in logical analysis. To be honest, that's the first I've heard of it ...

Ah, nobody who counts.

Your points have been taken into consideration, I cannot think of a response. Since I'm such a hard-headed theist, I still haven't just completely slapped myself on the forehead (OH what was I THINKING?) and turned atheist, but I just can't come up with a response. If I tried to, the topic would go nowhere.

Congrats on that.
 
PieMistress said:
No. I have no experience in logical analysis. To be honest, that's the first I've heard of it ...

Ah, nobody who counts.

Your points have been taken into consideration, I cannot think of a response. Since I'm such a hard-headed theist, I still haven't just completely slapped myself on the forehead (OH what was I THINKING?) and turned atheist, but I just can't come up with a response. If I tried to, the topic would go nowhere.

Congrats on that.
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No worries, dear. That's the way all of these discussions go. At least you've had the rare insight that it's pointless to continue. Congrats on that!
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: So, is god love? Prove it! Why does the world have so much hate? Why doesn't god eradicate the hate? Is he a vengeful god? If there were a god, he'd save the world (isn't that supposed to be what he was supposed to do?) Why does god bring hate to the world?
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I believe a big factor in all this is how different religions portray God. In the Abrahamic faiths he was assigned a personality that reflects much of the qualities of a bronze age tyrant. Loving to his most ardent followers and cruel beyond belief to those who commit the smallest infractions.
Alas, good marketing and a strong appeal to those with evil intent who wish to act out on the dark side of this type of God has spelt nothing but carnage for this planet. I know, some good morality has come out of it, but the bad seems to outweigh the good.

That's why I consider myself more spiritual in nature now and don't specifically embrace any one religion ,although I do have some bias and tend to admire a lot of the ancient egyptians spiritual system. They have a lot of neat mythical stories,some a little crazy/funny in nature ,but by and large they have nowhere near the bloodshed of the abrahamic religions.
At the heart of their religion lies a one god that represents selfless service,unconditional love and what I believe are many good qualities.

Hard for men with evil/control intent to market a religion like that.
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: So, is god love? Prove it! Why does the world have so much hate? Why doesn't god eradicate the hate? Is he a vengeful god? If there were a god, he'd save the world (isn't that supposed to be what he was supposed to do?) Why does god bring hate to the world?
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Why do you think God brings hate to the world. Hate is unfitting for humans (if it is unjustified), but for God, hate is fitting, as He is the one that can judge (thank God for that), so that His judgement is justice to the loving people.

If you strive for darkness, because your actions are dark, then you can go there, because you can. If you couldn't, then what could be meaningful?

Those that have control over themselves won't hate as much. Why do you hate?

You haven't figured it out yet, neither has I, because the answer is with God, and He will let us now when the time has come. We are in the world now, where it rains evenly over good and evil, and the sun shines evenly over good and evil. Bad things happen to both sides.

But why don't you understand. You won't turn your heart around, maybe because you aren't really curious, or you have bad intentions and not of open heart. So why don't you trust yourself?
 
superluminal said:
Wow. Just like every other arrogant, selfrighteous, holier-that-thou theist out there. You seem to know exactly how god is to behave. Bully for you, lil' miss. What tricks can you make your god do next?
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The big problem with many christians is they claim to know the personality of god and his nature but then will also state that gods "plan" is a mystery and will be revealed at some point to all.
Typical abrahamic arrogance.:rolleyes:
 
n900 said:
The big problem with many christians is they claim to know the personality of god and his nature but then will also state that gods "plan" is a mystery and will be revealed at some point to all.
Typical abrahamic arrogance.:rolleyes:
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M*W: You know, you are right! This is a pet peeve I have about christians, even some who are infrequent to this forum. They tell us in detail about god's emotions, feelings, sadness and joy, talk for hours on his physical appearance and demeanor, specify exactly what type fabric his clothes are made from, and you get the point.... It's annoying! Even as a devout atheist, I can imagine if there were a god (which there isn't), that he would be more of a spiritual embodiment. Why is it that some christians can describe god down to the color of her toenail polish but call anything they can't describe as a mystery??? Just makes me wanna puke.
 
Some people believe there's no absolute happiness in this world and we should love everyone, even if they're our enemies. And people will find the real happiness when they die and their sould reach the god.

Many people say, this is their belief. But they never ever live as they say they believe. Gandhi says I guess, I like Christ but I don't like his so-called followers. (Sorry don't remember the exact sentence)

Not only xtians all believers of so-called peace religions don't follow what they say they believe. I can see really devoted believers one in a ten thousand or so. It's one of the reasons people are leaving beliefs behind. They always hear empty promises but nothing really happens.
So the god is love argument is one of the none-practiced so called beliefs we encounter, but in real life no one actually thinks or acts like god is love. Or no one actually loves his enemies, or even neighbors.
 
I see where you guys are coming from - but the reason many Christians claim to know the personality of God and his nature is because that's what it says in the Bible. Anyone who goes on to describe what God looks like is, in my opinion, wrong in doing so. As you say, God is more of a spiritual embodiment - no describable physical appearance.

No one truly knows what exactly makes God sad/happy/whatever, but we get a general idea - you do bad things, he gets either angry or sad, depending on what it was. You do good things, he becomes happy.

God's plan is, according to the Bible, a mystery - as "none will know the day nor the hour" - for it will come as "a thief in the night." Christians know he has a plan, but we don't know what it is. We can't know what it is. The only one who knows who it is is God himself.

Also: "Typical Abrahamic Arrogance" -- I don't want to sound bitter, but did it ever occur to you that just because one is of an Abrahamic faith, it doesn't mean one is arrogant? I do believe we, as people, are all entitled to our own beliefs.

All belief systems/religions say that they are correct and the others are wrong - it's just the way life works. It's a matter of your own personal opinion/logic/beliefs as to which one is right.

edit: I agree with mindtrick - there are several "Christians" that do the complete opposite of what they preach - which is wrong, and by most standards, I do believe they would not be considered true Christians.
 
I'm surprised at you PieMistress, why don't you just say "the Devil" and call it a day?

Satan causes the hate, God causes the love. It's good cop bad cop for all eternity.
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: So, is god love? Prove it! Why does the world have so much hate? Why doesn't god eradicate the hate? Is he a vengeful god? If there were a god, he'd save the world (isn't that supposed to be what he was supposed to do?) Why does god bring hate to the world?
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What hate? We were born into a world of plenty, an eden of nature and fruit growing from trees, the waters full of tasty fish, the plains full of BBQ. The hate comes from man. Greedy people who couldn't recognize they were already in the kingdom.

Perhaps God knows we will bring it all back in the end, and doing this for us would rob us of that satisfaction.
 
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