There is proof from suffering that it is nonsense to speak of God's love
It is said that there are proofs for God's existence. Some philosophers say they
are not proofs but possible indications.
Even if the proofs worked there is still the proof of suffering - an all-good
God cannot stand by and let a baby suffer for nothing - to stand against them.
Religion says that God is spirit meaning he is his power. He is not like a
person as such. As God by definition has all power that means if God
exists all things are God. But we have the experience that we are not God
to stand against the existence of God. And suffering shows exactly
why we are not God.
Suffering refutes God. There would be a
paradox if God still existed. We would have to conclude that there is something
we cannot grasp that explains or solves the paradox. We need not assume that our
reason is defective or not intelligent enough at this point. We know that the
proof of suffering and experience would be stronger than the other proofs for
the other proofs are worked out like sums while suffering and experience prove
themselves without working them out and are more direct – they are direct
experience. If you see a gate no rational argument will be as powerful as your
experience that you have perceived a gate. What is proven to my consciousness
supersedes even what is proven by reason alone. Or what is direct supersedes
what is indirect and harder to prove.
Evil and suffering exist. If they are illusions then they still exist for the
illusions are evil no matter what the Christian Science cult says about evil
being non-existent. Evil and suffering being unreal illusions would mean the
illusions are evil. The religion of Christian Science only challenges the
reality of evil for it realises that evil cannot be reconciled with the good God
it wants to believe in. Interestingly, Christian Science in calling evil an
illusion indicates that evil is wholly incompatible with the existence of a
loving God and contradictory to it. The Churches agree but they add the bizarre
doctrine that evil is compatible with the existence of this God simply because
it is not an illusion! They say evil is real in the sense that it is not an
illusion so God needs it for a purpose.
Here is the argument that evil disproves God.
God is by definition all good and all-powerful.
God is able to stop evil.
Conclusion: But evil exists so there is no God.
The believers say that what is wrong with this is that the definition of good is
wrong – it defines good as happiness and pleasure alone. They say it is good to
suffer to work for good so good is more than happiness and/or pleasure. They say
you are more devoted to good if you undergo pain to make things better than you
would be if you do not. But that makes the good that results less good not more
good. A good party is one at which you feel well and make others happy not one
that you have to endure because you have a sore back.
To reject happiness and pleasure as good is to say that
sacrifice is good. But what is sacrifice for if it is not for them?
The religious doctrine of God directly implies that virtue is sometimes setting
things up to boost unhappiness. The believers advocate an evil morality to
justify belief in God. They make evil good in order to avoid the conclusion of
the argument.
So we are told the problem is the definition of good but then much religion says the error in the argument is in the conclusion for though God can stop evil he won’t because he sees some use in it that makes it worth tolerating. We have shown that the definition of good is in fact fine. It makes sacrifice bad except as a last resort for happiness and pleasure. The conclusion is that sacrifice is good for God has to tolerate evil for it is the only logically possible way to bring about that good. This contradicts the definition of good.
So God by definition is all about giving happiness and pleasure and has ulimited power to enable them.
Evil exists and sacrifice is evil in itself.
Therefore if we need to sacrifice to be good and happy
God does not exist.
God alone matters as he alone is deserving of perfect devotion and perfect
happiness. God tolerating evil would only be allowed for his sake not ours. A
God who tolerates evil for our sake would be degrading himself by inflicting
tolerance on himself. Tolerance is putting up with evil you can do nothing
about. But if you let this evil happen you cannot claim to be tolerant of it.
The idea of a loving God is nonsense.
There is no all-evil God which is obvious.
And there is no mad God for there is too much order.
And we know there is no evil God for the world would be
Hell. We know there are not two rival and equal gods, one good and the other
evil, for they would have given us free will. And it would be simpler for them
to keep us half happy and half sad or half good and half bad all the time which
makes it probable that they do not exist.
If there were many gods the good, bad or mad ones would be in the majority and
we know what that would mean. Agnosticism is wrong because it says there could
be a God. Evil would need to be our fault not God's if we want to maintain the
notion of an all-good God. Nobody has the right to say that God exists or that
anything indicates that he does unless they can prove free will first for that
is so basic. Free will cannot be proved for we don’t see the inner causes of our
choices. A drunk person feels free but is not. So in reality you are only
guessing that you have free will and that evil is down to rebellion against God
and not down to God. That is quite nasty.
Even if there is a God he has no relevance. We are naturally self-centred.
Self-centred and selfish are not the same thing. Since we have no free will to
be un-self-centred we can safely ignore him and ought to for he sends suffering
for nothing and he wants to be ignored. When we are self-centred by nature we
cannot help ignoring him and that is how he wants us to be.
Good should mean not wanting people to suffer. God should not want people to
suffer then if he is good. So he hates using evil for a purpose so we force him
to do it which means that when we need evil to be done to us we have nobody to
blame but ourselves and it is impossible to see how the evil could make us
holier people and more devoted to God when we are that low and sinful that we
make God break his own heart.
Evil not only disproves God but makes it wrong and evil to say there is a God.
God was created by people who wanted you to serve their ideals so they made up a
God who supposedly represents and commands these ideals so that you would not
realise you were serving them and not God. They think their weak virtue is so
great that it is worth all the suffering that has ever happened in the universe.
You cannot say God lets evil happen for he seeks to bring virtue out of it
unless you experience your virtue as being worth it.
Now what if people have an evil God? If he is against their ideals, he is for them in reverse. For example, if I hate my God who hates babies of a particular race, I am affirming my ideal that this racism, particularly this kind, is wrong.
If you have to invent a God, maybe one whose ideals you
oppose is what you need. If you affirm that little baby of another race,
then cursing the God you think hates the baby affirms that this really is your
ideal. An ideal that is that strongly held is definitely an ideal.
We talk a lot about ideals but they are not really ideals for we are too
half-hearted about them. Here you are willing to curse God and risk his
turning against you to love the baby. Nothing at all half-hearted about
that!
