We have no right to impute a good intention to any god or anyone without reason to affirm that it really is good
It is important to see good intentions and not to try to see a good intention where there is a bad one or an uncaring one.
The main thing to take away from this examination is that intention is not everything but it matters so much that you cannot lazily assume everybody's intentions and your own are always that well-meaning.
One example of that laziness is just when we say that God always intends the best for us. You do not know God and laziness towards him when you cannot even know him the way you know you have a neighbour next door leads to laziness in general.
People may lie that God comes first for them but in reality they value good intention so much that God becomes virtually nothing in comparison. For those who say that this is what God wants, remind them that if God wants a relationship with you then he will not accept just any good intention but good intentions that spring from the good intention to love and serve him. In other words your good intentions for others are not for them exactly but for him. Of course as atheists we deny that giving that much to God and faith is really a good intention. A prayer cannot matter as much as patching up the child's cut.
We all have intentions and many assume that God has intentions as well. The power to intend is allegedly a gift from God.
God supposedly gave us the power to intend good or evil. We can intend anything at all even if we cannot do it. An intention to kill is still valid even if you cannot act on it. The power to act on it is not the same thing as an intention. But God supposedly values even bad intentions so much he gives us power to torment billions through nuclear war if we wish. He would give even one person's intention that value. It is valued over the lives of billions.
Religion goes as far as to say or act as if all that matters is intention! Religion blames all evil on intention and does not care that most of the evil that happens is not deliberate. We do bad and it goes out of control and grows legs it never was intended to grow. Plus nature does bad better than us! It is hypocritical to despise intended evil when it is a drop in the evil bucket.
It is true that Catholicism for example says that you must never do an objective evil even to bring about a greater good. You cannot say that late-term abortion is evil but necessary to stop women dying in back alleys. It is true that it says morality cannot be reduced to good intentions. But it is true that every good in fact does involve some evil. For example, heating your family by lighting fires slowly but surely wrecks the world for future generations. So the Church teaching is not going to work. Atheists are often told, "Who gave you the right if there is no god to eat animals? You are robbing the cow of a chance of a happy life just for your dinner plate." At least that admits that we are alive because of evil. And are we to think that this would be turned good by a God saying it is acceptable? The teaching is an example of how a religion uses grand statements that are intended to fall on deaf ears. It is like Stalin trying to look good by preaching about justice and a good future. He can say that for it will make no difference as the blood of innocents runs before him.
Nobody agrees say with abortion what the objective evil is. Is it the abortions? Is it the women dying at the hands of abortionists? Both?
In religion the only justification for imputing a good intention to someone is that God expresses himself through this person and so his goodness will flow. In atheism, we hold that the person has a nurturing side naturally and that is all that matters. There is nothing in common between those for one respects God and the other says, "God or not I will respect the person as the originator of the beneficial things they do."
If you recognise that some things are bad and no intention to do them can be well-meaning. That covers God who lets babies be hurt. They should be the exception to suffering. Do not guess there is a good intention if what God or people are doing is objectively wrong - nobody has the right to impute a good intention to a person who kills babies in target practice.
All we have read so far about faith and intention reveals things that are too extreme so it is one reason for saying God should not be taken seriously unless convincing evidence turns up. It never will at this stage, we think.
One reason why God belief is effectively a placebo is that we want a God who unlike people can see what is in our heart meaning the supposed good. In time that numbs us and we condone and do worse things as long as we can keep up a "good" facade.
The godly emphasis on intention is extreme and is really about arrogant narcissism. It is intrinsically bad if anything is! It is, "My intention is so important that it is better for me to have it and cause endless destruction to innocents than for me not to have it." Is faith in God really about God? Think about that.
In religion the only justification for imputing a good intention to someone is that God expresses himself through this person and so his goodness will flow. In atheism, we hold that the person has a nurturing side naturally and that is all that matters. There is nothing in common between those for one respects God and the other says, "God or not I will respect the person as the originator of the beneficial things they do."
If you recognise that some things are bad and no intention to do them can be well-meaning, then what? That covers God who lets babies be hurt. They should be the exception to suffering. Do not guess there is a good intention if what God or people are doing is objectively wrong - nobody has the right to impute a good intention to a person who kills babies in target practice.
It is better to say that intention is just a product of nature, and not the divine, and we get the power to intend from it.
We are told, "Love is actively intending to do what helps another. Love is intention. It is not the source of love that matters but intending to love." There is no such thing as helping God so believers do not in fact love God at all but mistake a sentimental attachment or feeling for love. Because of this and because of how intention is over-valued God means nothing to us. Our mistakes about intention and love and how great they are only make us think God matters to us and can work to matter to us. He cannot.
If there is a God, it may still be the case that people are only promoting him and affirming him out of a desire to manipulate. This would be an argument against religion and scriptures if not God. A God that cannot bypass human wiles is not a God. Such a "God" probably does not exist.
We conclude that God's loving intention is an irony and a myth. And it raises questions about those who get a wage from preaching God and who force faith into schools and public life.
