I've noticed a common argument from atheists that if the God that various theists believe in is real, then that God is evil. This is usually a neighbor of OT study. The conclusion they come to is naturally that therefore the God does not exist, but there is another more psychologically damaging route that can be followed, simply that in fact God exists and is evil.
I think the line of reasoning that atheists follow is roughly:
If God exists, then God is evil.
God is not evil.
Therefore God does not exist.
But misotheism is the belief that God exists, and is evil:
If God exists, then God is evil.
God exists.
Therefore God is evil.
From my brief Internet foray into the subject, Percy Bysshe Shelley was a misotheist, and Goethe's Prometheus described such an attitude. The history is long and complex, and I recommend reading up on it.
Dystheism is a related belief, and more common among polytheists, that some gods are evil. All the various trickster gods are a trope of this sort, Loki and such, and it is debatable as to whether Satan falls into this category.
I know in my more panicked moments I've wondered whether there is in fact a God and whether he is evil. It certainly answers the problem of evil rather conclusively. I pray and ask God to tell me whether it exists or not, or what I should do, and it doesn't answer, and the routes are that it doesn't answer because it isn't real, or it doesn't answer because my existential crisis entertains it.
I just wonder if anybody on this forum has contemplated such things. They're not fun to contemplate, because the answer to how we can fight an ultimate, gigantic, other-wordly, and malevolent being is probably, "we can't."
I think the line of reasoning that atheists follow is roughly:
If God exists, then God is evil.
God is not evil.
Therefore God does not exist.
But misotheism is the belief that God exists, and is evil:
If God exists, then God is evil.
God exists.
Therefore God is evil.
From my brief Internet foray into the subject, Percy Bysshe Shelley was a misotheist, and Goethe's Prometheus described such an attitude. The history is long and complex, and I recommend reading up on it.
Dystheism is a related belief, and more common among polytheists, that some gods are evil. All the various trickster gods are a trope of this sort, Loki and such, and it is debatable as to whether Satan falls into this category.
I know in my more panicked moments I've wondered whether there is in fact a God and whether he is evil. It certainly answers the problem of evil rather conclusively. I pray and ask God to tell me whether it exists or not, or what I should do, and it doesn't answer, and the routes are that it doesn't answer because it isn't real, or it doesn't answer because my existential crisis entertains it.
I just wonder if anybody on this forum has contemplated such things. They're not fun to contemplate, because the answer to how we can fight an ultimate, gigantic, other-wordly, and malevolent being is probably, "we can't."
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=263211&goto=newpost
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