Does the award for the greatest evil go to Satan or God?

[Greatest I am]

How can imaginary creatures be more or less evil? I mean, yeah, the Baron Harkonen was "evil", but the question seems to presuppose their actual existence and the harm that they subsequently caused. Since all "evil" is from the mind and actions of human beings, the award goes to: Us.

~String

No argument.
Who but men can set the standards for men.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

I'm not a believer in any of the Semitic religions, so the 'God' and 'Satan' characters don't feature very prominently in my religious thinking. I don't believe that either of them literally exist.

But it's certainly possible to think about this stuff in the literary way that Madanthonywayne suggests, as fictional characters engaging in imaginary actions. We can still form opinions about the morality of those actions.

Seen that way, I have to say that my sympathy has always been as much with Satan as with God.

According to some versions of these religious myths, God is the creator and master of hell. We are told that God tortures people unspeakably for eternity, with no ear for their cries for mercy, and no heed for their spiritual evolution after they have been condemned to hell. The concept of hell totally discredits any claims for the morality of the God-character in my opinion.

And Satan is the one who stands up to this monster and has the incredible courage to say 'No!' to omnipotent power when it needs to be said.

Satan knows that God is incomparably more powerful than he is. Satan knows that his challenge will eventually fail and that he will inevitably be struck down for his disloyalty and will no doubt be tortured forever, with no possible hope of escape.

But Satan has a conscience, he has a heart that he can't ignore. He can't just sit there singing hosannas to a monster, he has to stand up for what's right, whatever the cost to himself.

Reinterpreted in that way, Satan becomes the most noble and admirable character in the whole story.

As he may have been closer to in the original thinking. That may be why God rewarded Satan with dominion of earth.

That or think of God's plan another way.

It was God's plan from the beginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can be demonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucified from the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucify Jesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damned sin.

If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build into the Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for a problem you do not anticipate?

God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the die was cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.

This then begs the question.

What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when there was absolutely no need to?

Only an insane God. That’s who.

The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.

One of Christianity's highest form of immorality is what they have done to women.
They have denied them equality and subjugated them to men.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN8EYIIR3g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dspWh9g3hU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c0RFxXrYzg&feature=related

Regards
DL

 

[sideshowbob]

Do as I say and not as I do is a rather evil policy.

God would be the most evil then.

Hypocrisy isn't evil. At worst, it's intellectually dishonest. At best, it's a recognition that there's room for improvement in everybody. God's hypocrisy might suggest that He isn't omnipotent but it doesn't make Him evil.

 

[Greatest I am]

As a secular humanist (not a member of the Church of Humanism), I agree.

But that doesn't negate that humans have, and have demonstrated, the capacity for great evil.

~String

True. We cannot help but do some evil as we evolve. All we can do is cooperate or compete. Competing always gives a loser and he will think evil has been done to him. It has, but having to compete, we have to live with knowing we will hurt others.

We cannot help being selfish. It is hard wired in us.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Hypocrisy isn't evil. At worst, it's intellectually dishonest. At best, it's a recognition that there's room for improvement in everybody. God's hypocrisy might suggest that He isn't omnipotent but it doesn't make Him evil.

Hypocrisy is good! Hmm.

I do not agree.

Regards
DL

 

[quadraphonics]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

 

[sideshowbob]

Hypocrisy is good! Hmm.

I do not agree.

Of course hypocrisy is good. It sets goals. Even if the setter can't attain those goals himself, he may inspire others to do so.

 

[spidergoat]

Does the award for the greatest evil go to Satan or God?...

You are totally right. God is the omnipotent one, so he has the ultimate responsibility for the situation he created. To suggest that Satan is more evil is to say God has no power over him.

 

[Pandaemoni]

I note that this thread assumes no one here adheres to the Jewish view of Satan...

Were I to have a position defending a Christian conception of God from the Christian view of Satan, I like to think the JRR Tolkien, basically has it right. Perhaps Satan thinks he is acting independently, and creating evil, but God is using that evil to create a more beautiful creation than could have existed in its absence. Perhaps a world where free people oppose and overcome evil is a better one (by God's standards, at least) than a world where evil never exists at all.

Of course, I hold odd views on God. In my view, if God is omnipotent, then He must have chosen to voluntarily limit or abstain from using that power. Otherwise he could create a perfectly good world without the need for any evil. If God himself were perfectly good, He'd never do that, which suggests to me that God is either not omnipotent or not perfectly good (or He's neither).

Of course the Jewish view of Satan is that he is the faithful, non-fallen servant of God, and that his work as adversary of mankind is good. In that view Satan's work is part of God's plan and Satan is well aware of that fact (and presumably glad for it).

 

[spidergoat]

I note that this thread assumes no one here adheres to the Jewish view of Satan.......

That still makes God evil, since purposely tempting us is not what a good person would do.

 

[quadraphonics]

Perhaps Satan thinks he is acting independently, and creating evil, but God is using that evil to create a more beautiful creation than could have existed in its absence. Perhaps a world where free people oppose and overcome evil is a better one (by God's standards, at least) than a world where evil never exists at all.

There are two objections to that (standard) line of response: the first is that the putative incompatibility of free will and the abolition of evil is itself an aspect of God's creation to begin with. If he's omnipotent, he could have created a different universe wherein free will exists without any need for evil. Otherwise, you have to hold that the definitions of these concepts and the rules of logic, etc. all exist before and above God (i.e., he is not omnipotent). The second is that there abound banal instances of suffering which a benevolent God would prevent without any impact on questions of free will or moral agency. Why does God allow earthquakes to wipe out whole cities? Is it because he hates the residents (for their permissive attitudes towards homosexuals or something) and is punishing them? That doesn't seem particularly benevolent, especially considering that he is supposed to have created these people and the conditions they find themselves in.

 

[kx000]

Of course hypocrisy is good. It sets goals. Even if the setter can't attain those goals himself, he may inspire others to do so.

Hypocrisy is a lie.

 

[sideshowbob]

Hypocrisy is a lie.

No it isn't. If I tell you that giving to the poor is a good thing and then I don't give to the poor, I'm a hypocrite but I'm not lying. It's still good to give to the poor.

 

[Greatest I am]

Of course hypocrisy is good. It sets goals. Even if the setter can't attain those goals himself, he may inspire others to do so.

Give a plausible example or scenario.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

You are totally right. God is the omnipotent one, so he has the ultimate responsibility for the situation he created. To suggest that Satan is more evil is to say God has no power over him.

+ 1

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

I note that this thread assumes no one here adheres to the Jewish view of Satan...

Were I to have a position defending a Christian conception of God from the Christian view of Satan, I like to think the JRR Tolkien, basically has it right. Perhaps Satan thinks he is acting independently, and creating evil, but God is using that evil to create a more beautiful creation than could have existed in its absence. Perhaps a world where free people oppose and overcome evil is a better one (by God's standards, at least) than a world where evil never exists at all.

Of course, I hold odd views on God. In my view, if God is omnipotent, then He must have chosen to voluntarily limit or abstain from using that power. Otherwise he could create a perfectly good world without the need for any evil. If God himself were perfectly good, He'd never do that, which suggests to me that God is either not omnipotent or not perfectly good (or He's neither).

Of course the Jewish view of Satan is that he is the faithful, non-fallen servant of God, and that his work as adversary of mankind is good. In that view Satan's work is part of God's plan and Satan is well aware of that fact (and presumably glad for it).

Yes. Christians should wonder why God gave Satan dominion here if he is so evil.

They do not as they do not have the apologetics to explain it.

You are correct in favoring the Jewish way of thinking of their myths.
Christianity screwed up when they reversed our elevation in Eden to a fall that they cannot explain well.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

That still makes God evil, since purposely tempting us is not what a good person would do.

Unless like in the Jewish take, all God was doing was creating a sense of desire in man.

Something we all need to survive.

Regards
DL

 

[Yazata]

I note that this thread assumes no one here adheres to the Jewish view of Satan...

I'm not entirely certain what the Jewish view of Satan is. But I do seem to recall that there's a tradition in which Satan kind of serves as God's 'inspector-general'. He goes around tempting people, in order to see how deep their loyalty to God really is.

In that version of the story, the God-character still suffers from whatever moral defects the tradition has the God-character suffering from. And the Satan-character loses all the heroic qualities that he might have derived from standing up and taking a position in moral opposition to that. Satan is reduced to being sort of a two-faced weasel. He tries to talk human beings into opposing God, then runs and informs on them to his master if they listen.

Were I to have a position defending a Christian conception of God from the Christian view of Satan, I like to think the JRR Tolkien, basically has it right. Perhaps Satan thinks he is acting independently, and creating evil, but God is using that evil to create a more beautiful creation than could have existed in its absence. Perhaps a world where free people oppose and overcome evil is a better one (by God's standards, at least) than a world where evil never exists at all.

In my opinion that's one of the best religious replies to the problem-of-evil. If God is good, then why is there so much evil in the world?

One could argue, and many people have, that perhaps the greatest good can only come about through overcoming adversity. Heroism wouldn't be the same thing if there weren't any occasions that called for heroism. Compassion wouldn't be the same thing if there was never any need for it.

That kind of story works even better if people believe in eternal life. That would allow the reinterpretation of this life of travail as just a passing moment in a much bigger narrative. All of this might easily be imagined as a test or something. Many people do seem to believe that.

Of course, I hold odd views on God. In my view, if God is omnipotent, then He must have chosen to voluntarily limit or abstain from using that power. Otherwise he could create a perfectly good world without the need for any evil. If God himself were perfectly good, He'd never do that, which suggests to me that God is either not omnipotent or not perfectly good (or He's neither).

I look on all this stuff as religious literature, you might say. As traditional stories. The God-character and the Satan-character are modeled on human beings, and they operate and relate according to the same kind principles that we do. God's a king, and maybe a father too, a clan-chieftain of an ancient Semitic desert clan.

Then that kind of thinking kind of collided with the Greeks, and with a new philosophical mode of thinking. So everything began to be reinterpreted in the form of abstractions. God became infinite Good and infinite Power and infinite Transcendence, and somehow in that process God stopped being a person whose motivations are transparent to everybody because they are modeled on our own. God was transformed into a logical problem.

In other words, the kind of consistency problems that you suggested might not have even occurred to the ancients when they were thinking of all this in literary story-narrative form. The logical problems probably didn't really become apparent until they started thinking of God not simply as their tribal chieftain in the sky, but in more abstract terms as "perfect goodness" and "omnipotence" and so on, and until they started thinking about what the logical relationships would be between those ideas.

I'm guessing that most religious believers, even today, still think of their religion in story-narrative form, and not in abstract theological terms as a Greek-style philosophical problem.

 

[Greatest I am]

There are two objections to that (standard) line of response: the first is that the putative incompatibility of free will and the abolition of evil is itself an aspect of God's creation to begin with. If he's omnipotent, he could have created a different universe wherein free will exists without any need for evil. Otherwise, you have to hold that the definitions of these concepts and the rules of logic, etc. all exist before and above God (i.e., he is not omnipotent). The second is that there abound banal instances of suffering which a benevolent God would prevent without any impact on questions of free will or moral agency. Why does God allow earthquakes to wipe out whole cities? Is it because he hates the residents (for their permissive attitudes towards homosexuals or something) and is punishing them? That doesn't seem particularly benevolent, especially considering that he is supposed to have created these people and the conditions they find themselves in.

Logic and reason are a bitch. Keep it up.

Regards
DL

 

[sideshowbob]

Give a plausible example or scenario.

I gave one. If I tell you that giving to the poor is a good thing but I don't give to the poor, I'm hypocrite - but giving to the poor is still a good thing. Somebody else might even give more than I could.

The hypocrisy itself is neither good nor bad. The outcome of the hypocrtical statement can be either good or bad.