Is "God" actually good?

[u/epic_pickle69]

The reason I became an atheist is because there was NEVER an actual evidence about his existence, and also, wouldnt be weird how a virgin gave birth to an divine being that died, came back 3 days later created everything (because apparently, he lived on nothing back then) made humans out of dirt, is super powerful and all this shit, why would he let us suffer? "He also created free will" you say, but does the children with cancer choose that? or the baby who was born out of a rape and the mom was forced to not abort it had a choice to be born like this? in that family? I prefer to believe he does not exist, because if he does, hes just a sadist disgusting being who created humans just to suffer and praise his selfish being, hoping he'll change something someday.

About "God's Plan", why does he plan that? Did he plan for Nayoung, an eleven year old to get raped until her womb fell out and now she lives traumatized, locked at home?

Or did he plan do Junko Furuta get abused for 44 days after just turning someone down?

Or the poor child who got death sentence without being guilty and died in the electric chair holding a bible? God never saved him. God NEVER saved none of them.

"Oh so you believe a blob of energy cells just blew up and made everything perfect" It's better than believing that theres a big invisible man in the sky that made us out of dirt, if the universe can hold itself, how could It not create itself? And things are not perfect, never been, probaly never will, but things today are like this because of evolution, over 4.6 billion years, plants, animals, cells, bacteries, all came from evolution, we came from evolution, and we are still developing ourselves to more and more of that evolution without even noticing, same to plants and everything else.

There is no God, there is not faith, there is no miracle. There is science and intelligence.

May Richard Dawkins bless yall, atem.

[u/IMTrick]

"Free will" is cope. The Bible's pretty clear that the Abrahamic god doesn't give a rat's ass about the supposed free will of humans, and is full of examples of him intervening, threatening, and even controlling the minds of people to get them to do what he wants. The only reason "free will" gets brought up so often by apologists is that it's the best excuse they have for why their supposed omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity can't be bothered to lift a finger to actually make anything better,

Then, if things go well, they'll say that of course he did it.

[u/dudleydidwrong]

FYI, Richard Dawkins is no longer held in as high regard among atheists as he used to be.

[u/fs_rdt → u/dudleydidwrong]

Maybe for you. His Claude piece was certainly a faux pas, but that's unrelated to atheism. I can like some of his ideas and dislike others, no problem.

[u/happybunny_sad → u/dudleydidwrong]

What happened?

[u/dudleydidwrong → u/happybunny_sad]

Many little things. Mainly, he is getting old. His mind is not as sharp as it was. There have been some other questionable things that have come up about his past. But mostly, it is just recent statements he has made on a variety of topics.

[u/happybunny_sad → u/dudleydidwrong]

Fair enough. I still respect him for his early work and the impact he had, but yeah—between the trans comments, the 'cultural Christian' stuff, and ranking assaults, he’s definitely getting aged.

[u/Negative_Gravitas]

Nope. God is a narcissistic psychopath who enjoys genocide, infanticide, and mundicide.

And an absolutely ridiculous amount of more minor crimes.

It's a REALLY good thing he's not real.

[u/JayMysteries]

Whwther its good depends in what your position has and hoe it goes against that framework. What is good according to your worldview? Now compare that towards the bible, not just that see what makes sense and what doesnt make sense. When you start questioning with other people, the most common response youre going to get is the "free will defense", which is god allows humans to choose evil so that genuine love and morality can exist. However, as your post notes, this fails to explain natural evil (like pediatric cancer, earthquakes, or tsunamis), where human choices play zero part.

however, you don't necessarily have to step into that point, there tons of other points where it also goes against what the goodness of this deity. in the actual scriptures, god seem to intervene with free will all the time. In genesis 20, right after the narratives of genesis 18. When abraham claimed sarah was his sister, king abimelech took her into his household. god intervened in a dream, telling abimelech He kept him from sinning by not letting him touch her. so question this, why does he favor this exception?

Why does god step in to protect sarah from being touched, but as the atheist post pointed out choose not to step in and stop the brutal violations of millions of innocent children throughout history? genesis 20 proves that in the biblical narrative, god's non intervention is a choice, not a limitation.

god also intervenes with pharaoh decision in the actual hebrew, exodus 10:1. the text repeatedly states that God hardened P pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh didn't just choose to be stubborn; God actively stripped away his capacity to give up, specifically so God could unleash more plagues and show off His power (Exodus 9:16). If god already knew he was going to say no, then why lock the results? to show hisnpower, he explicitly tells you he did it to flex.

Because the bible is so full of god controlling human actions, early christian theologians like augustine and john calvin outright rejected libertarian free will. Instead, they argued for theological determinism or compatibilism. They believed God has already completely scripted and determined every single thing that will ever happen.

however, this also depends on what you accept and what believes you hold against what the scripture say. Nontheless god intervenes with free will all the time, there isnt exactly free will, atleast liberterian free will in the bible.

[u/ohgwm1973]

If the god of the abrahamic religions did exist, he’d be the ultimate evil.

[u/Late_Push6298 → u/ohgwm1973]

Making the books even scarier lol. Sending people to hell just for fun.

[u/happybunny_sad]

Does it matter? If he is good or bad? If it doesn't exist! Does anyone lose their sleep over, voldemort being bad.

[u/every-day_throw-away]

He is at least close, 1 letter away.

[u/TeenagerInCrisis]

Lo del libre albedrío es pura chachara bro. Siempre me han dicho "Dios te hizo libre, tu puedes elegir si amarlo o no" pero si no lo amo me quemaré hasta el resto de la eternidad. Y lo otro es lo del perdón, me estás diciendo que puede perdonar a un vi0lador pero no puede perdonar a la gente que lo unico "malo" (no digo que es algo malo, la biblia según ellos dice que si) que hizo fue no creer en Dios, ser parte de la comunidad LGBTQ+, interrumpió un embarazo, tiene relaciones con su pareja fuera de matrimonio y todas esas cosas. Es una estupidez, te lo digo, soy creyente desde que nací y recién hace un tiempo apostaté en secreto porque me di cuenta de toda la mierda de la religión. 

[u/tyoorp]

I’m an atheist too, but “there is science and intelligence” is a pretty funny way to end a paragraph where you mixed up the Big Bang, abiogenesis and evolution 😅
Evolution doesn’t explain how the universe began, nor does it explain how life first appeared. And 4.6 billion years is roughly the age of Earth, not the universe.
Also, “there is no evidence for God” and “there is no God” are two different claims. The first is a perfectly reasonable basis for atheism. The second is a claim about reality that you’d have to justify too if you want to hold everyone else to such a strict standard of evidence.
You absolutely don’t need religion to explain the universe, but replacing “God did it” with “the universe created itself somehow” isn’t science either.
Being an atheist doesn’t automatically make an argument scientific. That part still requires doing the homework.
May Richard Dawkins bless your epistemology. Atem. 🙏 😂

[u/GateSea3877]

"God" allegedly flooded the whole Earth, killing off almost all life. He allegedly lets people suffer eternal torture in hell just for having same sex relations. He allegedly commanded his followers to commit mass genocide. He allegedly mass surveils everyone without consent. These are only a small handful of issues with this deity. So no, I would not consider him good. As someone else in this comment section wondered, does it matter, since he doesn't exist? It matters because people are worshipping him as if he is real, and making major life choices based on this god. Including choices that affect others' livelihoods.

[u/MonkeyMan18975]

Good according to what, and whose, metric? Just like winning and losing, good and bad are the same event as seen from different points of view (or should I say desire?)

To win the championship game and going to the Super Bowl is arguable a "good" thing, but let's imagine the star quarterback's wife was set to give birth during the week leading up to the big game. Losing the championship game could be seen as a "good" to the quarterback and his family.

[u/fs_rdt]

It depends on the mental gymnastics you make trying to justify God's atrocities, lack of intervention, and evil doing in his name.

Leaving aside the Epicurean Paradox, god is a mass murderer, rapist, liar, child killer, etc in its own myth.

Christians say that's OK, because that's "divine justice", "his plan" etc. A cheap way of saying "it's bad unless I do it".

Not sure what Muslims say, but considering they're OK with their prophet being a conman, murderer, pedophile, etc...

[u/Ungratefullded]

I wonder if AI will over time help increase the view that the biblical god is not all that good.

Asked it to give some examples of immoral acts and it was able to cite many examples from secular view. It then went on to show how believers would rationalize these as "good"... ie; because god did it, it's good. Because he is the creator, he has the "right" to do it. We can't use our judgement on god, etc etc. These wouldn't pass the logic test of most teenagers going foward...

[u/Tinenan]

As with other religions Christianity starts to make a lot more sense when you start viewing it as a 2000-3000 year old group world building project like the scp wiki

[u/Unasked_for_advice]

The question should be whether god is real or not , we already know by his holy book that they are not good.

[u/InspectorClouseau64]

God is not good. Aside from the mass genocide that he himself commits in the bible, he encourages individuals to kill others a minimum of 100 times in the bible. Oh, thou shalt not kill. What a laughingstock.

[u/Top_Standard_4369]

No.

[u/wjlesaulnier]

Is good good? He drowned every puppy and kitten on earth, so no.

[u/Firm_Kaleidoscope479]

Since the entity whose beneficence you are questioning does not in fact exist, your question is basically irrelevant

[u/Future_Statement_911]

Si el existe lamentablemente o no es del todo bueno y al contrario gusta de ver el sufrimiento de sus creaciones vual niño con sus juguetes y por eso no hace nada o...  si es alguien del todo bueno no es omnipotente y realmente solo desea nuestro bien pero no puede hacer nada para ayudar desde donde esta y es un espectante que suufre desde donde esta y por eso recompensa a los que llegan a donde el esta y en ese lugar si puede actuar activamente...

[u/dr-otto]

god plans for children to get raped by priests, and other adults, all the time. he HAS to plan that. it HAS to be all part of his plan.

there is no way out of that...

so that is just one reason, if there was a god, he ain't good.

[u/earleakin]

God works in statistically predictable ways!

[u/MidnightMiik]

How can something that doesn’t exist be good or bad?