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God is either omnipotent and a dick for making you suffer anyhow, or not omnipotent in which case why would you believe?
I was born with a severe congenital issue that causes me constant pain.
Why would a benevolent god do this to me? It’s sadistic.
So I had a head start in thinking the Christian god is a sadistic bastard. The priests I encountered tried to tell me I was being tested for reasons. How do you explain testing a four year old for your faith? What the fuck did your god want me to learn?
My constant, unrelenting pain was part of what stopped me believing that bullshit. They could never explain my suffering to me, except to say I was chosen by god to endure it, like the saints. I was not a saint, and that was just cruel.
The more I learnt about it all, the more I understood it was all just bullshit. It was just stories made up by those in charge to stop regular people from questioning their rules. When your own story is used by the church to justify the stories of saints, it becomes painfully obvious.
God is either omnipotent and a dick for making you suffer anyhow or [...]
Probably this one. God is canonically a dick in the bible, between "testing" that one guy's faith by telling him to kill his son, between killing humans to full on genocide on many occasions to killing everything everywhere that one time. Even Jesus has his cringe moments, like when he killed a tree because it wasn't producing fruit which he took as an act of rebellion against God, despite trees not being conscious (he should know, he made the damn things) and therefore not being able to rebel against anything.
Also, if you're omnipotent, why even have a tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden in the first place? Especially if you know that Satan will tempt the humans to eat from it (he's omniscient is he not?) and the humans you created absolutely will eat from it. God is like one of those Sims players that deliberately create dangerous situations for the sims only he gets really mad when they predictably fall into the trap he set.
I know someone who was in the hospital a lot as a kid, and said her faith was shattered by three words "Pediatric Oncology Ward". That and having been placed in the room across from where they took patients for burn debridement, in a children's hospital.
Pretty much my goto for problem of evil. It is really hard to argue that an loving god, even with free will bullshit excuse, would create a situation where humans had to develop pediatric oncology. The one group of humans we can point to and say they are innocent the one group we can point to and say this injustice. Given a choice between a universe that is indifferent and one that is a machine for misery I know which I would prefer and which one makes the most sense given the data we have.
Pretty much my goto for problem of evil.
It's a good example of it.
I'm fond of a work of fiction called UNSONG when it comes to the problem of evil though, it posits as a solution that god operates at a level of abstraction where if two things are identical, they are the same thing and God's purpose is to maximize the amount of good that exists. So God goes about creating worlds, first a perfect one, then ones with a single imperceptible imperfection, etc, etc, every conceivable world that results in more good than evil on net. We're out on the fringes of that.
This same work of fiction also manages to be an absolute masterclass on foreshadowing, and manages to be about theodicy, kabbalah, open source software, the works of William Blake and the song Miss American Pie all at once. Coherently. If something doesn't make sense to you in the moment, it's probably not a plot hole but a lack of understanding that has already been foreshadowed.
Maybe secondhand stories are a bad way to understand it.
Not sure what you mean. Bible stories are second-hand at best, and mostly 5th hand or worse.
don't play games. Reality is better.
?
I have no idea what you’re getting at. What games?
pretending to misunderstand me. That game.
I’m not pretending. I have no idea what you mean.
Let’s begin again, and I’ll give you every benefit of the doubt, assuming I’m a complete idiot and that you’re making your point in earnest: what point am I missing?
Honestly, I feel like we’re talking past each other, and I’d rather have an earnest conversation.
I said "Maybe secondhand stories are a bad way to understand it."
The "it" refers to this thing called "god". Referred to by a story that you read. A second-etc-hand story
Assume that somebody saw something really strange. They tell their friends about it but, because it is strange, they have to make up a name and describe it via metaphor.
Any understanding conveyed must be crippled. Because language is limited that way. Do that a few more times and we're worse than lost. We have arrived at fanfiction.
This is obvious.
A better way to understand it is to see for yourself.
Okay, thanks, that gives me a bit more to work with, but I’m still quite confused.
Your original reply to my personal story was:
Maybe secondhand stories are a bad way to understand it.
And I’m confused because mine was a first-hand story.
I get the ‘it’ is ‘god’. I never saw anything strange. My point was my pain was used when I was a toddler by priests to justify the stories of saints, especially their pain and sacrifice. How exactly is that a second-hand story? How is that something that can be dismissed as metaphor? How does that relate to language? It’s a direct, literal and personal experience in the Christian church. Full stop. You don’t have to like it, but it’s a real thing that happened. And no matter how it hurts your feelings, I am not alone.
This is not fan fiction. It’s real. I don’t care if you believe it. I honestly couldn’t care less about your beliefs in general. I’m just sharing my experiences because it helps me to talk about it. Your opinions about me don’t matter to me at all. I’m only engaging with you because I feel bad when people believe the lies told by the church, and I care about other people. If you’re going to be a dick about it and dig in your heels, I’ll stop being interested in talking to you.
I’m sorry you seem to feel that way, and you should probably stop trying to engage atheists until you can open your mind a bit.
I did not refer to your "personal story" as fiction. I referred to your "story of god" as fiction.
But you know this.
Again with the game.
Christ, there’s no game. You misunderstand one thing I said and immediately jump to me playing games – which I must be honest, only shows you have a tendency to read a fictional and paranoid layer into everything you hear.
I have no such layer. I say exactly what I mean, sometimes to a fault.
I say this with a true concern for your well-being and absolutely nothing beyond that: have you sought professional help? I strongly think you should. Most people don’t immediately think strangers have ulterior motives as strongly as you do. That’s just not normal, and there are a few mental issues that is a strong indicator of. Given our very limited conversation, you jumping repeatedly to that assumption is not usual.
I’m happy to continue our conversation, but maybe we should talk about something else that has nothing to do with religion, since that topic seems to be too emotionally fraught for you. Maybe we can chat about your favourite tv show instead? I’m really into Star Trek: Lower Decks right now. I also like Resident Alien, and the live-action One Piece on Netflix. What do you think?
I am also very confused at what your point is. Like, they mentioned that bible stories were indeed second hand, if not more.
If you mean their childhood story, that was first hand.
If you are referring to priests delivering an incorrect interpretation of the Bible, it's implied they grew up in a religious environment and read the Bible, couldn't find the answers they wanted, and thus sought the help of religious experts.
So what are you actually talking about? What isn't answered here?
Forget it