From the perspective of God the delineation between good and evil is a human perspective, not necessarily God’s.
A similar point of view would be if a person sets a rule for a child or maybe a pet. The person strictly enforces this rule, but openly breaks the rule because it does not apply to them. The child or pet meet feel that they are being treated unjustly and categorize breaking of the rules as being wrong. Making the child go to bed at bedtime or not allowing the pet to eat certain foods.
What many atheists do not understand is that human logic does not apply to God(s), just like the feelings of my dog wanting a slice of pizza do not apply to me.
Is God evil, probably, what is evil? What is good? Is God just? In application to others if you’re following Christian ideology he theoretically is in the long term, but in application to their self definitely not.
The biggest problem I have with Atheist logic is that if there is a god that it should follow human logic and because there is suffering and issues in the world there must be no god or that God isn’t worth following. If after life beliefs are correct do you think it matters if you took a moral high ground against an unfair god?
If you’re an atheist because you don’t believe there is a god then cool, but if you are an atheist because you think God should follow our rules idk what to say for you.
The same goes for religious people, you have to accept that God let’s bad things happen to you.
The simple obvious answer is that there is no God. If there is, I want no part of an afterlife with him.
“God is so moral that he doesn’t need earthly morals” is an absolutely laughable justification. May God strike me dead before I click the “reply” button, if I’m wrong.
Hey, that’s chill. I’m not trying to appeal to people to change their opinions on whether there is a god or not. I’m simply arguing that if what is said about god is true, then taking the moral high ground because you’re the better being doesn’t really mean anything.
“Hey what did you do that landed you up in eternal pain and suffering?”
“Oh, I’m just morally superior to the being that put me here.”
The same goes for religious people blaming the bad things in their life on anything other than the same all powerful being.
The religious blame the bad things on Satan, not God. Pretty convenient. God gets all of the credit an none of the blame. It’s delusional.
Also, what rational argument suggests there is eternal pain and suffering? Some old Mediterranean folk lore twisted through time, with more Faust and Inferno (Dante) than scripture in the current belief? I don’t see any reason to rationally believe there is eternal pain and suffering.
IDK, I was going for the more extreme groups of religious groups. In some religious beliefs your belief in god has less effect on your post death outcome. Maybe in those you become a cat rather than burn in eternal pain for not believing in xyz god.
In high school I wrote a paper about the dichotomy of religious beliefs portrayed in Beowulf. My paper was about how the embracing of a new religion was personified by the acts of good being attributed to god, but the acts of evil were attributed to the non-biblical and villainous entities being portrayed by pagan representations. Essentially, as new cultures adopted Christianity they had a core issue in assigning blame to god for the ills in their lives so they were instead assigned it to something else that was still familiar (another cultural belief). This lead to a short period in which these peoples earnestly believed in both religious pantheons.
“Hey what did you do that landed you up in eternal pain and suffering” “oh, I’m just morally superior to the being that put me here”
From what I understand, the “eternal pain and suffering” is just not being near him for eternity, but that’s the thing with religions usually there are 100s of different interpretations of stories that were written after thousands of years of oral tellings. “If what is said about God is true” becomes a moot point because no one agrees what he said. Who knows if not believing in a god can cause eternal pain and suffering or what that suffering entails if it exists. The story had those details once it was written down, but who knows if it was there in the original oral telling.
I personally believe that the stories are just outdated allegorical stories. Satan and the many other people punished by “god’s wrath” in the beginning of the Bible are just allegorical figures for people who don’t follow the virtues of the story. I mean Satan’s fall from grace was because he thought he was superior to god, which is how you describe atheists that use a moral argument to justify their atheism (they’d probably be more agnostic than atheist though if they are entertaining the thought that god could exist).
If you look at the Bible as a collection of allegorical stories on how to live a good life, then it becomes clear why “god” and his rules often suck in a modern context. It is a guide to living a good life thousands of years ago, and human beings and life has become much more complex as time has gone on. We need to acknowledge and criticize how awful the bible’s and other religious teachings are, so we can move on and write a new guide on how to be good people who live good lives.
Tell that to the self proclaimed atheists that use the morality of God as a reason why there is no god. To be clear I agree, but I’m tired of hearing the argument.
The Argument From Evil, properly stated, concludes that no god exists because it defines God as a necessarily omnipotent/omni-benevolent being. I think it’s weak because it leans on a version of God that most religious people don’t REALLY believe. It then leans on the fact that lines like “God is not good” or “God is not omnipotent” gets religious folks’ back up.
If the only way an atheist argument wins is because the valid logic objections to it are frustrating to Christians, it’s not a great argument.
But stated right, it IS still an argument for the nonexistence of God, not an argument that “God exists but is immoral”.
Ah the argument from authority… this exact reasoning is I believe why christofascism is taking such a root in American politics. A pet still knows when it is being abused. Having rights and power over others does not make actions moral. This is basically a might makes right line of thinking except God becomes humanities bully.
You may not believe morality is subjective, but I do, and I define moral actions as led by my inner compass. You may choose to call your inner compass the holy spirit and assign gods divinity to it, making your interpretation of gods actions closer to divine authority, but it holds no more importance than anybody elses interpretation or convictions.
To think that any being would be exempt from judgement or morality based on their power or position of authority is in my opinion the weakest logic of all. By this logic, abortion should be a non starter for theists after all, my house my rules, right? No it turns out there is no equivalent logic to explain the relationship between man and god. All sinful humans must follow your inner compass whereas any command or action attributed to god is exempt from reproach, and since you inner compass is actually the holy spirit, it gives you or your interpretation of your favorite book dominion over all others without the need for any self reflection whatsoever. This way you can attribute acts that are considered evil by every other daily metric as good so long as you can delude yourself that it is gods will.
“Didnt you go out and do all these things in my name?”
If god exists and provided you free will and the holy spirit, why then would you not be expected to use it to discover more about god? To develop discernment instead of chalking up inconsistencies in the messaging to gods will and all actions dictated by men as “acts of God”. Isn’t it possible that the idea of god of the Bible or the Quran or whatever is inherently flawed and twisted to serve the desires of man? That god, if real, is not depicted accurately in any single book in the history of man?
I cant stand these ray comfort style gotcha arguments like no actually we don’t have to follow logic or morality because divinity and anyone who questions our assertions has the absolute arrogance to spit in gods face.
I’m not trying to make an argument in support of religion or god, I’m making an argument that moral (subjective or objective) rationales do not validate or invalidate the existence of god. If god exists, then they do so whether you believe in them or not. If god exists and the supposed outcomes of not following their rules is true, then whatever judgements about them you have is irrelevant.
Is god evil because it allows bad things to happen? Yeah and so what? You can think god sucks and is unfair or unjust, be the better person and refuse to worship or believe all you want. If you don’t meet their magic requirements for the good ending then you get the bad ending no matter how much more moral you are.
I think that trying to have a philosophical debate about the morality or ethics of god(s) is asinine since if a god exists your objections to it have literally no value.
Only you are not having a philosophical debate with god about your moral judgments, ill be the first to admit that gods opinion matters fuck all in a philosophical debate about god you are debating the ideas of the person who believes in god. This idea that god can and will always be good and just simply because he may exist outside of any human measurement is absolute bullshit for all the reasons I listed above and more. The belief of god and the claim the god wills or controls every action and event can be tested.
Any claim to the contrary is just cowardly evasion or desperation
Dude, you’re literally inventing shit. I never said that,
“that god can and will always be good and just simply because he may exist outside of any human measurement is absolute bullshit for all the reasons I listed above and more. The belief of god and the claim the god wills or controls every action and event can be tested.”
I’m making the statement that if you think that god doesn’t exist because god doesn’t meet your definition of good or moral, you’re missing the mark. If god exists they exists outside of whether you believe in them. If god exists and their power is what is attributed to them then your opinions, however morally well founded they may be, are completely worthless.
The idea that you can test god’s will or that god controls our every action cannot be tested unless you assume that god is a benevolent being. If god doesn’t care that you kill your neighbor as long as it doesn’t effect their long term plan then killing your neighbor doesn’t disprove there is a god.
If god turns out to be a 7th dimensional being playing around with a 3rd/4th dimensional ant farm, that can just destroy us in a snap then all your moral high ground is for shit. If god is real our relationship to it is the same as ants in an ant farm to the guy outside the glass wall. If they fry us with the magnifying glass it makes no difference if they are good, evil, just, unjust, right, or wrong.
If you don’t believe in god then cool. If you think god is unworthy of worship and belief then cool, but if so you’re not an atheist because you believe in god. If you believe in god, but think they are unworthy of worship you opinion doesn’t matter because you’re an ant in an antfarm. The lesson here is either stop believing in god or fucking shut up about it.
I’d like to propose a thought.
1.) God makes rules
2.) Following those rules is good
3.) Breaking those rules is evil
For the record I’m agnostic, and I don’t believe in a monotheistic god. One that is asserted as omnipotent, benevolent, omnipresent, omniscient etc. The Christian god is the one which the moral argument was presented against which does assume a god of perfect good. I personally think if god exists they would encompass the lowest common denominator of spiritual beliefs and likely be devoid of a singular personality.
Just like your original point about this supposed moral immunity derived from authority, the subject is not so black and white. You’re not either an athiest or a believer depending on where you argue from. Every believer in one god is also an athiest to another.
I don’t have to believe in “your” god to point out the bad argument in support of god. I dont have to acknowledge gods existence to defend against believers imposing their beliefs of god onto me. I also don’t have to stay quiet while somebody takes a pulpit and cries about how their omnibenevolent 7th dimension king of kings gets a bad rap from everyone who doesn’t see just how magnificient their being is because theyre too hung up on the silly notion that a being of perfect good would not order kidnapping virgins to take as child brides, or genocide every Canaanite, command bears to eat children who teased a bald guy and so on.
I’m making the statement that if you think that god doesn’t exist because god doesn’t meet your definition of good or moral, you’re missing the mark. If god exists they exists outside of whether you believe in them. If god exists and their power is what is attributed to them then your opinions, however morally well founded they may be, are completely worthless.
Your statement doesn’t exist in a void!! People dismissing god as immoral is based on a thousand years of philosophy such as Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and CS Lewis asserting that god is the source of all morality.
People arent starting with god isnt moral therefore he doesn’t exist, as you claim in this strawman. arguments for god are been presented as omnibenelovent and the source of all morality, god does things that are agreed upon as immoral, therefore the moral arguments for god are wrong and god still likely doesn’t exist. Pointing out contradictions between the actions of god in the Bible and the claims made about gods also doesn’t make an athiest a believer. More desperate gotcha bullshit.
The lesson here is either stop believing in god or fucking shut up about it.
So much for that high school paper. You very clearly don’t have any grounds to hand out lessons.
I’ll be the first to say the new trend of atheists horribly mangle the Problem of Evil, and while they rebut responses like yours, they tend to do so horribly and emotionally. But properly stated, Divine Command theory really doesn’t work.
The LPOE is challenging one of two traits for God: omnipotence or omni-benevolence. And those two concepts are defined in reasonable, quantitative ways. The God in the your example is a direct acceptance of the LPOE by the admission that god isn’t “benevolent” at all by that definition. Which is perfectly fine, but it does create a lot of very valid moral or ethical problems, along the line of Hedonistic salvation.
The rest of my reply doesn’t belong with LPOE, but this is focusing on the rules side instead of the suffering side.
You see it as a parent setting rules for a child, but it can also accurately be seen as (sorry, both of these come from the show Suits, and apparently the showrunners have a problem with moms) “mommy tells the child he’ll get a Playstation if he lies to the judge about daddy hitting her”. OR, “mommy will punish you if you tell daddy what she did with the mailman last night”. Rules are not inherently Good by most standards.
And that’s before you add the uncertainty. We’re 100% definitely not “following rules that our parents gave us”. We’re following rules we found typed up on a piece of paper that some people **insist ** came from our parents, and maybe they did. And some of them seem really weird or even harmful, and seem to contradict what we think mom and dad want for us. And we have to decide whether or not we’re going to follow them before our parents come home. Because daddy will murder us if we’re wrong. And I don’t mean a beating, I mean with his God-glock.
What many atheists do not understand is that human logic does not apply to God(s), just like the feelings of my dog wanting a slice of pizza do not apply to me
This is true, but you can still pass some judgement on a dog who acts out of possessive-aggression. But of course, we are more responsible for our actions than dogs, aren’t we? Why? Because we have more agency than dogs. Guess who has the most agency, assuming there’s a God? That would make him the most accountable. When he does something prima facie evil and the more you analyze his actions the weaker the objections get, then “Good is just what God wants and evil is just what he doesn’t want” simply doesn’t cut it.
Is God evil, probably, what is evil? What is good? Is God just? In application to others if you’re following Christian ideology he theoretically is in the long term, but in application to their self definitely not.
I think there are Christian ideologies that can make sense of it all, but contingent salvation is as filmsy to philosophical attack as wet cardboard. I would encourage you to listen/read Dr. Josh Rasmussen for his in-depth research into the Problem of Evil and Salvation from an open-minded Christian perspective. He, too, concludes that God cannot pass the Problem of Evil if there is contingent salvation. But he stands by the Ontological Argument, so conceding “God isn’t all-good” is not on the table for his POV.
The biggest problem I have with Atheist logic is that if there is a god that it should follow human logic and because there is suffering and issues in the world there must be no god or that God isn’t worth following. If after life beliefs are correct do you think it matters if you took a moral high ground against an unfair god?
Ironically, I would hope a Christian would be the first person to say YES IT MATTERS because they stand behind martyrdom as a legitimate virtue. Let me put it this way. If Christianity were true with one exception, that the Devil ultimately wins instead of God, would you kneel to him because your eternity is more important than actually being a good person? Would you be able to respect a person who does unspeakable evils, knowing they are unspeakable evils, because they get to selfishly be immortal?
If so, I think you’ve just given atheists the win. If not, then at least you can understand (if not agree) rejecting a God you think is evil.
The same goes for religious people, you have to accept that God let’s bad things happen to you.
Yeah, I’m fine with that. I think the true god is neither omnipotent nor omni-benevolent. God can be a jerk sometimes, but so can I, and I don’t have to debase myself or put him far above me, so I can forgive god. If that gets me a good afterlife, I got there in a way I’ll never regret. If that gets me eternal damnation, at least I know I didn’t selfishly throw away my morals for personal gain.
I’d like to propose a thought.
1.) God makes rules
2.) Following those rules is good
3.) Breaking those rules is evil
From the perspective of God the delineation between good and evil is a human perspective, not necessarily God’s.
A similar point of view would be if a person sets a rule for a child or maybe a pet. The person strictly enforces this rule, but openly breaks the rule because it does not apply to them. The child or pet meet feel that they are being treated unjustly and categorize breaking of the rules as being wrong. Making the child go to bed at bedtime or not allowing the pet to eat certain foods.
What many atheists do not understand is that human logic does not apply to God(s), just like the feelings of my dog wanting a slice of pizza do not apply to me.
Is God evil, probably, what is evil? What is good? Is God just? In application to others if you’re following Christian ideology he theoretically is in the long term, but in application to their self definitely not.
The biggest problem I have with Atheist logic is that if there is a god that it should follow human logic and because there is suffering and issues in the world there must be no god or that God isn’t worth following. If after life beliefs are correct do you think it matters if you took a moral high ground against an unfair god?
If you’re an atheist because you don’t believe there is a god then cool, but if you are an atheist because you think God should follow our rules idk what to say for you.
The same goes for religious people, you have to accept that God let’s bad things happen to you.
The simple obvious answer is that there is no God. If there is, I want no part of an afterlife with him.
“God is so moral that he doesn’t need earthly morals” is an absolutely laughable justification. May God strike me dead before I click the “reply” button, if I’m wrong.
Hey, that’s chill. I’m not trying to appeal to people to change their opinions on whether there is a god or not. I’m simply arguing that if what is said about god is true, then taking the moral high ground because you’re the better being doesn’t really mean anything.
“Hey what did you do that landed you up in eternal pain and suffering?”
“Oh, I’m just morally superior to the being that put me here.”
The same goes for religious people blaming the bad things in their life on anything other than the same all powerful being.
The religious blame the bad things on Satan, not God. Pretty convenient. God gets all of the credit an none of the blame. It’s delusional.
Also, what rational argument suggests there is eternal pain and suffering? Some old Mediterranean folk lore twisted through time, with more Faust and Inferno (Dante) than scripture in the current belief? I don’t see any reason to rationally believe there is eternal pain and suffering.
IDK, I was going for the more extreme groups of religious groups. In some religious beliefs your belief in god has less effect on your post death outcome. Maybe in those you become a cat rather than burn in eternal pain for not believing in xyz god.
In high school I wrote a paper about the dichotomy of religious beliefs portrayed in Beowulf. My paper was about how the embracing of a new religion was personified by the acts of good being attributed to god, but the acts of evil were attributed to the non-biblical and villainous entities being portrayed by pagan representations. Essentially, as new cultures adopted Christianity they had a core issue in assigning blame to god for the ills in their lives so they were instead assigned it to something else that was still familiar (another cultural belief). This lead to a short period in which these peoples earnestly believed in both religious pantheons.
From what I understand, the “eternal pain and suffering” is just not being near him for eternity, but that’s the thing with religions usually there are 100s of different interpretations of stories that were written after thousands of years of oral tellings. “If what is said about God is true” becomes a moot point because no one agrees what he said. Who knows if not believing in a god can cause eternal pain and suffering or what that suffering entails if it exists. The story had those details once it was written down, but who knows if it was there in the original oral telling.
I personally believe that the stories are just outdated allegorical stories. Satan and the many other people punished by “god’s wrath” in the beginning of the Bible are just allegorical figures for people who don’t follow the virtues of the story. I mean Satan’s fall from grace was because he thought he was superior to god, which is how you describe atheists that use a moral argument to justify their atheism (they’d probably be more agnostic than atheist though if they are entertaining the thought that god could exist).
If you look at the Bible as a collection of allegorical stories on how to live a good life, then it becomes clear why “god” and his rules often suck in a modern context. It is a guide to living a good life thousands of years ago, and human beings and life has become much more complex as time has gone on. We need to acknowledge and criticize how awful the bible’s and other religious teachings are, so we can move on and write a new guide on how to be good people who live good lives.
You can’t be an Atheist if you believe a god exists that should follow our rules.
That is like the whole point of Atheism.
Tell that to the self proclaimed atheists that use the morality of God as a reason why there is no god. To be clear I agree, but I’m tired of hearing the argument.
Again, atheists tend to argue the LPOE terribly.
The Argument From Evil, properly stated, concludes that no god exists because it defines God as a necessarily omnipotent/omni-benevolent being. I think it’s weak because it leans on a version of God that most religious people don’t REALLY believe. It then leans on the fact that lines like “God is not good” or “God is not omnipotent” gets religious folks’ back up.
If the only way an atheist argument wins is because the valid logic objections to it are frustrating to Christians, it’s not a great argument.
But stated right, it IS still an argument for the nonexistence of God, not an argument that “God exists but is immoral”.
Ah the argument from authority… this exact reasoning is I believe why christofascism is taking such a root in American politics. A pet still knows when it is being abused. Having rights and power over others does not make actions moral. This is basically a might makes right line of thinking except God becomes humanities bully.
You may not believe morality is subjective, but I do, and I define moral actions as led by my inner compass. You may choose to call your inner compass the holy spirit and assign gods divinity to it, making your interpretation of gods actions closer to divine authority, but it holds no more importance than anybody elses interpretation or convictions.
To think that any being would be exempt from judgement or morality based on their power or position of authority is in my opinion the weakest logic of all. By this logic, abortion should be a non starter for theists after all, my house my rules, right? No it turns out there is no equivalent logic to explain the relationship between man and god. All sinful humans must follow your inner compass whereas any command or action attributed to god is exempt from reproach, and since you inner compass is actually the holy spirit, it gives you or your interpretation of your favorite book dominion over all others without the need for any self reflection whatsoever. This way you can attribute acts that are considered evil by every other daily metric as good so long as you can delude yourself that it is gods will.
“Didnt you go out and do all these things in my name?”
If god exists and provided you free will and the holy spirit, why then would you not be expected to use it to discover more about god? To develop discernment instead of chalking up inconsistencies in the messaging to gods will and all actions dictated by men as “acts of God”. Isn’t it possible that the idea of god of the Bible or the Quran or whatever is inherently flawed and twisted to serve the desires of man? That god, if real, is not depicted accurately in any single book in the history of man?
I cant stand these ray comfort style gotcha arguments like no actually we don’t have to follow logic or morality because divinity and anyone who questions our assertions has the absolute arrogance to spit in gods face.
I’m not trying to make an argument in support of religion or god, I’m making an argument that moral (subjective or objective) rationales do not validate or invalidate the existence of god. If god exists, then they do so whether you believe in them or not. If god exists and the supposed outcomes of not following their rules is true, then whatever judgements about them you have is irrelevant.
Is god evil because it allows bad things to happen? Yeah and so what? You can think god sucks and is unfair or unjust, be the better person and refuse to worship or believe all you want. If you don’t meet their magic requirements for the good ending then you get the bad ending no matter how much more moral you are.
I think that trying to have a philosophical debate about the morality or ethics of god(s) is asinine since if a god exists your objections to it have literally no value.
Only you are not having a philosophical debate with god about your moral judgments, ill be the first to admit that gods opinion matters fuck all in a philosophical debate about god you are debating the ideas of the person who believes in god. This idea that god can and will always be good and just simply because he may exist outside of any human measurement is absolute bullshit for all the reasons I listed above and more. The belief of god and the claim the god wills or controls every action and event can be tested.
Any claim to the contrary is just cowardly evasion or desperation
Dude, you’re literally inventing shit. I never said that,
“that god can and will always be good and just simply because he may exist outside of any human measurement is absolute bullshit for all the reasons I listed above and more. The belief of god and the claim the god wills or controls every action and event can be tested.”
I’m making the statement that if you think that god doesn’t exist because god doesn’t meet your definition of good or moral, you’re missing the mark. If god exists they exists outside of whether you believe in them. If god exists and their power is what is attributed to them then your opinions, however morally well founded they may be, are completely worthless.
The idea that you can test god’s will or that god controls our every action cannot be tested unless you assume that god is a benevolent being. If god doesn’t care that you kill your neighbor as long as it doesn’t effect their long term plan then killing your neighbor doesn’t disprove there is a god.
If god turns out to be a 7th dimensional being playing around with a 3rd/4th dimensional ant farm, that can just destroy us in a snap then all your moral high ground is for shit. If god is real our relationship to it is the same as ants in an ant farm to the guy outside the glass wall. If they fry us with the magnifying glass it makes no difference if they are good, evil, just, unjust, right, or wrong.
If you don’t believe in god then cool. If you think god is unworthy of worship and belief then cool, but if so you’re not an atheist because you believe in god. If you believe in god, but think they are unworthy of worship you opinion doesn’t matter because you’re an ant in an antfarm. The lesson here is either stop believing in god or fucking shut up about it.
Im making shit up? You opened with this
For the record I’m agnostic, and I don’t believe in a monotheistic god. One that is asserted as omnipotent, benevolent, omnipresent, omniscient etc. The Christian god is the one which the moral argument was presented against which does assume a god of perfect good. I personally think if god exists they would encompass the lowest common denominator of spiritual beliefs and likely be devoid of a singular personality.
Just like your original point about this supposed moral immunity derived from authority, the subject is not so black and white. You’re not either an athiest or a believer depending on where you argue from. Every believer in one god is also an athiest to another.
I don’t have to believe in “your” god to point out the bad argument in support of god. I dont have to acknowledge gods existence to defend against believers imposing their beliefs of god onto me. I also don’t have to stay quiet while somebody takes a pulpit and cries about how their omnibenevolent 7th dimension king of kings gets a bad rap from everyone who doesn’t see just how magnificient their being is because theyre too hung up on the silly notion that a being of perfect good would not order kidnapping virgins to take as child brides, or genocide every Canaanite, command bears to eat children who teased a bald guy and so on.
Your statement doesn’t exist in a void!! People dismissing god as immoral is based on a thousand years of philosophy such as Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and CS Lewis asserting that god is the source of all morality.
People arent starting with god isnt moral therefore he doesn’t exist, as you claim in this strawman. arguments for god are been presented as omnibenelovent and the source of all morality, god does things that are agreed upon as immoral, therefore the moral arguments for god are wrong and god still likely doesn’t exist. Pointing out contradictions between the actions of god in the Bible and the claims made about gods also doesn’t make an athiest a believer. More desperate gotcha bullshit.
So much for that high school paper. You very clearly don’t have any grounds to hand out lessons.
But what if following the rules got the pet or child hurt, and not following them would not hurt them. Because that is the case here.
I completely understand the analogy, but the result bestowed upon the child/pet is what determines the subject : good/evil.
Though I read a very good comment here that said both options could and should be replaced by “responsible”, which actually makes a lot is sense.
I’ll be the first to say the new trend of atheists horribly mangle the Problem of Evil, and while they rebut responses like yours, they tend to do so horribly and emotionally. But properly stated, Divine Command theory really doesn’t work.
The LPOE is challenging one of two traits for God: omnipotence or omni-benevolence. And those two concepts are defined in reasonable, quantitative ways. The God in the your example is a direct acceptance of the LPOE by the admission that god isn’t “benevolent” at all by that definition. Which is perfectly fine, but it does create a lot of very valid moral or ethical problems, along the line of Hedonistic salvation.
The rest of my reply doesn’t belong with LPOE, but this is focusing on the rules side instead of the suffering side.
You see it as a parent setting rules for a child, but it can also accurately be seen as (sorry, both of these come from the show Suits, and apparently the showrunners have a problem with moms) “mommy tells the child he’ll get a Playstation if he lies to the judge about daddy hitting her”. OR, “mommy will punish you if you tell daddy what she did with the mailman last night”. Rules are not inherently Good by most standards.
And that’s before you add the uncertainty. We’re 100% definitely not “following rules that our parents gave us”. We’re following rules we found typed up on a piece of paper that some people **insist ** came from our parents, and maybe they did. And some of them seem really weird or even harmful, and seem to contradict what we think mom and dad want for us. And we have to decide whether or not we’re going to follow them before our parents come home. Because daddy will murder us if we’re wrong. And I don’t mean a beating, I mean with his God-glock.
This is true, but you can still pass some judgement on a dog who acts out of possessive-aggression. But of course, we are more responsible for our actions than dogs, aren’t we? Why? Because we have more agency than dogs. Guess who has the most agency, assuming there’s a God? That would make him the most accountable. When he does something prima facie evil and the more you analyze his actions the weaker the objections get, then “Good is just what God wants and evil is just what he doesn’t want” simply doesn’t cut it.
I think there are Christian ideologies that can make sense of it all, but contingent salvation is as filmsy to philosophical attack as wet cardboard. I would encourage you to listen/read Dr. Josh Rasmussen for his in-depth research into the Problem of Evil and Salvation from an open-minded Christian perspective. He, too, concludes that God cannot pass the Problem of Evil if there is contingent salvation. But he stands by the Ontological Argument, so conceding “God isn’t all-good” is not on the table for his POV.
Ironically, I would hope a Christian would be the first person to say YES IT MATTERS because they stand behind martyrdom as a legitimate virtue. Let me put it this way. If Christianity were true with one exception, that the Devil ultimately wins instead of God, would you kneel to him because your eternity is more important than actually being a good person? Would you be able to respect a person who does unspeakable evils, knowing they are unspeakable evils, because they get to selfishly be immortal?
If so, I think you’ve just given atheists the win. If not, then at least you can understand (if not agree) rejecting a God you think is evil.
Yeah, I’m fine with that. I think the true god is neither omnipotent nor omni-benevolent. God can be a jerk sometimes, but so can I, and I don’t have to debase myself or put him far above me, so I can forgive god. If that gets me a good afterlife, I got there in a way I’ll never regret. If that gets me eternal damnation, at least I know I didn’t selfishly throw away my morals for personal gain.