What I was thinking was that it's entirely possible to have good and evil without imagining a cosmic person who creates, embodies or enforces the whole thing.
Good and evil can be relevant only to persons.
Good and evil can be relevant only if they are objective.
Good and evil can be objective only if they are defined by the supreme person.
So even the moral arguments deliver abstractions, not a personal God.
Sure.
For example that God is magnanimous enough to allow speculation about Him (or at least that He doesn't care or won't punish you for speculating about Him); that God is such that thinking about God makes a difference somehow, and not for the worse; that God reciprocates; that our act of thinking about God is somehow governed by God.
I suppose, but that's an expression of preexisting religious faith.
My point is that it is precisely not the case that those assumptions would be an expression of preexisting religious faith.
Instead, those assumptions are inherent simply to the very act of thinking about God.
I'm questioning whether an atheist would necessarily think of God that way.
If they sit comfortably in a comfortable armchair and think about God, then the above assumptions will be implied.
Of course, those assumptions are usually not enough to "believe in God" or to go to church as a result (although there are individuals for whom this is the case).
So the armchair thinker about God is still an atheist, albeit one with some internal discomfort (which is why he feistily posts at internet forums
).
The very act of thinking about God, even if it is just natural theology that one engages in, requires that some things about God's nature, and our own nature, be assumed and taken for granted.
What assumptions are those?
Stated earlier on, about God being magnanimous etc.
This seems to get at the as-yet unexplained subject line of this thread, the reason why you're apparently suggesting that belief in God's being evil is necessry in order for there to be a atheist/theist conversation.
Note the concept in the OP is
debate, not mere discussion or conversation. Debate is about winning.
If one believes that God is good, one sees no need to debate about Him - as one sees that everything is in perfect order and will ultimately work out fine - because God is good.
But if one believes God is evil, or could be evil, then one's inner moral drive will force one to prevail over other people in one way or another.
Why? I have no trouble entertaining the possibility that God is evil.
For how long and to what extent?
And how does that last sentence relate to the question in your subject line: "Without the conviction that God is evil -how much theist/atheist debate can there be?" It seems to contradict it. Are you attributing atheists' atheism to that belief that God is evil which somehow cuts them off from God and puts them on a collision course with theists?
It sure does. And many atheists openly speak of God as being evil (and this being the reason why they don't believe in God).
The ne plus ultra of wickedness is embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity.
I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.
-- John Stuart Mill
Given the above assumptions about God, and our own understanding ourselves as persons, we are bound to assume also that God is a person.
Otherwise, thinking about God is halted.
Sure, if we already have religious faith that God is a person,
And my point is that religious faith is not necessary for the formation of such assumptions.
It appears that the moment one starts to think about God, one is as if put on a train of thought, and that train goes somewhere, in a quite predictable way.
In Buddhism, they speak of the regularity of the Dharma - that things don't just chaotically and unpredictably happen. But that when this is that is; from the arising of this, comes the arising of that; and from the cessation of this, comes the cessation of that.
There are not infinite and chaotic options.
At some point, I was asking Christians about how they have come to terms with God apparent immorality. They saw no problem.
Neither do I. I don't understand your point there.
Personally, I could not reconcile the notions that God is omnibenevolent - and yet tortures the majority of His beloved (!) children in hell for all eternity.
So I asked Christians how they have come to terms with this, how they have reconciled this; my question was especially aimed at those who have converted to Christianity as adults.
