Exactly…! I don’t know how, if atheists don’t believe in God why they blame him for natural tragedies that are caused just by evolution. And even more! They kind of “believe literally” in the Bible when they critic some “weird” things that God commands to do in the Old Testament. They take those things as literal truths. Of course you will say that they don’t believe that those things happened. Ok, but you should recognize that in any case, there IS a persistent consistency and a big likeness between what ECists and atheists say about this matter. I like how passionate some guys become articulating an atheist defense…!
joao. feel free to diisprove my claim. why do you think that miller claim hold water?
@Bilbo I think it’s fair to say that if I had written that sentence, I would have worded it differently than Alex.
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Pipio, I’m not sure about your conclusion. Yes atheists blame God who doesn’t exist (from their perspective) as a way of justifying that they do not believe in God. It is as if to ask, who wants to believe in a god that allows natural tragedies? EC blame evolution and God, for natural tragedies. Evolution in the process, and God in the original design of the process.
But some will then get around this by saying that natural tragedies are not evil. They just are. And there is a bit of a point to this, since it is our reactions to these events that have the opportunity of good or evil. Again, this is manifest in the choices we make. Do we blame God for our own sin, for our own disobedience and pride, or do we acknowledge the greatness of God, and God’s right to create and sustain, and do we repent, and accept God, or reject Him?
Hi Roger,
While I think that the problem of evil that Lou refers to is one of the most important challenges to Theism and he is right to take it seriously, I think your question is very astute. Anyone who thinks we could make a universe that includes courage, honor, virtue and ultimately any real forms of value out of a divine nursery where there is no real struggle and where we are all protected from actual danger should try the thought experiment. I think we would be left with very little that we hold to be meaningful or worth fighting for. So good point and maybe one of the most relevant responses to this challenge.
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No, Roger. However, if you will always excuse even the most horrific things, then your belief that god is benevolent is just devoid of meaning.
There is no question of an excuse.
You have to look at every situation individually. There is no question that life can be and often is difficult and painful, but also true that God gives us the ability to withstand the pain. God gives humans the ability to prevent and to treat disease. We also have the ability also to medicate pain.
The most horrific things I would expect to be human created suffering, like the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Certainly we agree with the reality of this evil.
Without suffering there is no pleasure. Without evil there is no good. Without death there is no life.
On the other hand Christians believe that death is not the end of life, but a transition a new life with God for those who are faithful. Thus makes the most of life on earth for all God’s people.
Thank you.
You might be interested in my paper on > God and Freedom on the Academe…edu website.
Steven C Meyer has a lot of extremely great points that science refuses to answer and just calls him a Kook and ignores him!.I have listened to him many times on You tube and he tells how the judge that ruled in the Dover case gave exact wrote what the attorney against his ID teaching said! It is important to hear both sides of an argument before turning the Intelligent design side off! I Do have The signature in the Cell book and the anti -God Bias of the evolutionist will not let them listen to his point! i believe that the evolutionist have an Anti-God Bias and a conspiracy is working to shut the voice of creationist up! However I know the TRUTH and keep screaming very loud and refuse to be silenced by the anti- God conspiracy!
I didn’t call him a kook. His scientific points are just mostly wrong, as BioLogos (hardly a member of an anti-God conspiracy) has pointed out in earlier posts. Evolutionists are not necessarily anti-God; the evidence against creationism and in favor of common descent is just overwhelming, no matter what your belief about gods. It may look like a conspiracy to you, but maybe you should reflect a bit on the reasons why common descent is accepted by nearly all scientists around the world, regardless of cultural background. The few exceptions are nearly always religious fundamentalists/literalists who value faith over empirical evidence.
Roger, maybe you misunderstood my response. Let me put it differently. Is there anything that would convince you that god is not benevolent? If so, what? It seems to me that you can justify nearly any horror by saying things like “God gives us the ability to withstand the pain”. But if you can justify anything to protect your belief that god is a benevolent designer, then your belief is empty of content, more like something you define to be true regardless of the evidence for or against it.
Let me put it yet another way. Do you think it was really necessary for your god to design a worm that eats the insides of an innocent child’s eye? Does that horror really add anything except terrible suffering to a child’s life, or to the parents’ lives?
Then what was a cow before it evolved into a cow? what will it supposedly change into after it leaves the cow stage? What was a giraffe before it was a giraffe? where is the intermediates? all animals are fully developed and mature and able to reproduce and do not seem to be changing into or from anything! I am sorry but Common descent is total hogwash! God either did it or he did not! if God did it and no intermediates are found then that makes evolution a lie! and it surely is!
Martin, the fossil record is full of intermediates, and you can trace back things like dogs and cats, reptiles and mammals, cows and horses, humans and chimps, until they blend into each other. Any decent museum will have examples for you to see for yourself. There are lots of BioLogos posts on the evidence for common descent, which now includes very strong genetic evidence; I’d recommend especially those posts by Dennis Venema. Already in Darwin’s day there was enough evidence for common descent to convince most people. Today the genetic evidence and new fossil evidence has spectacularly confirmed Darwin’s great insight. Common descent is an established fact.
people claim that all we have is 'faith" however if God did create the world as I do see that he has done.It is No longer just faith but fact! evolution is NOT possible at all so it is faith and it should be.because I do NOT see it anywhere i look! and if evolution were true,{not having a mind} it would not know to hide so well! you would be able to see it very easy everywhere.
We do see it everywhere, in the fossil record, in DNA, or happening right in front of us in fast-reproducing microbes.
your intermediates are all in your mind! They do NOT exist except on evolutionist fancy art work that they show you over and over in books and on TV! They make it an illusion! plus DNA does not allow the large changes that would be needed to make evolution true! you are the same type {human}as your parents were and nothing more or less!
Microbes always remain microbes they change into nothing more!
Martin, so you think god has been creating new creatures every few million
years? Or do you think the order of appearance of species in the fossil
record is a devilish trick of Satan, or another conspiracy?