God: Benevolent or Malevolent?

Well, the bible isn't going to help much trying to answer that: the entity it portrays as god is sometimes vile, demonic, stupid, vindictive and violent; yet at other times seems to care for the well being of selected human beings, or at least claims to. The behavior is too erratic to conclude whether generally benevolent or generally malevolent.

It's better to take an objective view, get up off the planet's surface where it can be viewed without being buffeted by its turmoil, and frame the question: IF there's a god, is it benevolent or malevolent?

How could one tell?

You could log the occasions of all the things that happen, wars, volcanoes, discoveries of cures for cancer, getting to work on time, having work, disease, birthday parties, finding a lover, losing a lover, tsunamis, nuclear reactor meltdowns, finding a restaurant that cooks your steak exactly right, landing on the moon, etc. etc. and pile them all into two columns, GOOD STUFF and BAD STUFF, then see if one column is clearly larger than the other.

But you run into instant trouble with that exercise: what's GOOD STUFF for you could be BAD STUFF for someone else, and vice versa. You'd have to winnow the columns down, WAY down, to just things that were GOOD regardless of who was affected, and BAD regardless of who was affected, and you're STILL in trouble because you're in no position to make that kind of assessment. It's impossible to assign a value of GOOD or BAD to something without being subjective, because GOOD and BAD are themselves subjective terms.

You can't look at it objectively.

So if it can't be evaluated objectively, look at it subjectively. After all, what matters here is whether god is benevolent or malevolent insofar as how YOU'RE affected. If god is benevolent you should feel that benevolence pretty decisively, or if god is malevolent you feel that malevolence pretty decisively.

So you should ask, am I so satisfied with how my life is going I can't complain?

Ask that question, and the overwhelming response from the whole of mankind is: "Not so much. We've had to create a major institution called religion which devotes most of its energy begging god for something better".

And how's that worked out, all that begging? Are you still begging?

IF there's a god, it's more likely to be malevolent, in that we as a species find it necessary to ALTER NATURE to shape life into something better than what we have. Most of ALL of our energies, religious or non-religious, are directed toward taking ourselves out of where we are now to something better.

Because IF there were a god that was benevolent, nature would be benevolent, wouldn't need changing, and we'd be generally much happier than we are, and not ceaselessly feeling that we're not as happy as we could be.

IF there was a god.

So your measure hinges upon the number of good things vs. the number of bad things that happen and you're the judge as to good and bad? This is a common simplistic view often engaged upon by those whose only desire is to denigrate God (as depicted in the Bible) and those Christians who believe in Him.

Oh great, just when thought it was safe to go out on the web again... As if AK would really be interested in the answer anyway.

I think many miss the point...

The creator doesn't care what goes on after she created the chaos that IS our universe.

Many religions try to say there is some care/love from the creator and thus benevolence bestowed, especially to those that will revere/pay homage to the depicted version of the creator within that faith/religious following...

I do not believe the creator is either of the OP's choices...

I pick none of the above.

I also believe that if the creator wanted you to know something, you would know it from birth... and you wouldn't need to hear about what the creator wanted from some work written by man.

So say I
Bob Jr
Church of the Living Bob

I think we need to ask what the Creator cares about? What is His purpose? Once we've discovered this we can ask whether the methods used to achieve His goal are Benevolent or Malevolent.

Is the purpose of this thread to make believers consider the hypotheses of OP in a hope for them to draw a (new) logical conclusion?

If so, I would like for anyone who do so to speak up as it would go against the hypothesis I now present:

The questions will not make any believer doubt there is a god more than before reading the thread.

It would be interesting if someone proved my hypothesis wrong, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.

God is an evil and vile creature, otherwise his so called followers would actually do the right thing, instead they follow a vengeful and hateful god.

A reasonable discussion on a hypothetical question really shouldn't be so difficult.

Perhaps related, but I thought it would be interesting if the discussion phrased the question a bit differently as "you are god. Knowing what you know of the human condition, would you treat humanity benevolently? "

I suspect this boils down to: is free choice benevolent ? That is an interesting discussion too.

I disagree Bra...

While it is true many of the written works that claim to be by the hand of god, contain horrid and vengeful texts, that were written by men to retain certain men in power... to claim the acts of mortals are an indicator of the creator's intent are factually ficticious.

The creator isn't vile... as for evil... that IS man's domain... always has been.

++1

I thought you said you didn't believe

Or perhaps we should ask why the creator doesn't care about some things, and then look into the verifiable things the creator has done to see what the general intent appears to be.

For example, as in your post, many imply or refer to the creator in the male context... yet, we are told by most religious thought that we were made in the image of the creator... when you look at life here on earth, nearly all life that we call higher beings are borne from the female... if we are created in the image of the creator, then why aren't we saying the creator is a female... the reason I find is firmly held in my observation of male enforced power and authority structures.

I for one, have often wondered why I am made up of the elements created in a Supernova... which is the ultimate destruction of what used to be a star, a giant ball of flame... I would not exist without this chaotic yet predictable occurance... which, our own solar system will succumb to in the distant future.

That and base 4 as the math principle by which we know all DNA is built on... I mean, it is quite remarkable to me to fathom why all life as we know it has DNA, and that all DNA is based on the same underlying system/structure.

Thanks, Amm0, for adding a valid perspective.

One of my many failings as a believer in both GOD and Jesus is that I'm admittedly lacking in the ability to explain why a loving creator would give people created in his image free will.
If you believe in GOD, intelligent design, Allah, or the Great Pumpkin it's pretty clear that we've been endowed with a free will and (most of us) have also been given a strong desire for self determination.
In other words...you can tell GOD to go piss up a rope if that's what you're into. That doesn't mean that he will necessarily stop loving you. Anybody who has ever raised a rebellious kid knows that you don't (normally) stop loving your kid, even if he or she is a knucklehead.

People always try to fit GOD into the people box. We all do it, as did I in my previous parent/kid gezample. We can't really be expected to do otherwise, since all we know is all we know.
I'm thinking that the whole GOD/Creation thing might just be a little more involved than we're able to comprehend at this point in our development. It's probably a little harder for us to noodle out than trying to explain Twitter to folks that lived two thousand years before Vice President Gore invented the internet. APK seemingly sees our world as something that we have to struggle furiously with in order to live out our lives. I see it more like a wondrous habitat that we should use responsibly to enrich the human experience. Others see it as a pristine place that we shouldn't be tinkering with at all.
YMMV.
I haven't been here long enough to have very many things figured out for myself, so I'm not going to hold myself out as a knowledge source for others. As I said before,,,,it's one of my many failings as a believer. I'm 'pretty sure' that the universe didn't happen by accident, and that we will be judged by our creator for how we spent our time here on this rock.

Jesus charged us with going forth and spreading the good news. The fact that we're having this discussion is proof to me that most Americans got the GOD memo. If you want to wad it up and throw it in the trash, well that's on you.
In the past...Christians used to be used for Lion Chow for believing in GOD. Somehow, I don't believe that people belittling GOD or believers in a car forum is a really heavy lift, if you know what I mean. If you're on the fence...you probably need to look elsewhere for guidance speaking both for myself and this forum.

Just be glad you're in a country and at a time where they don't invite you find out for sure if you don't worship as MAN says you should.

:yo:

Google Uracil.

It is a base of RNA in primates, but its function has evolved over time.

As an aside, symmetry is a powerful force in nature.

According to the Bible who was created first male or female?

But I think we digress from the actual topic. If you want to judge someones actions don't you have to know what the goal or purpose his actions were serving or trying to achieve?

It's interesting looking at ancient/medieval maps - how they don't match up. As humankind expanded his horizons, many were not open to the possibility the world could be round, and ruled out evidence beyond their understanding.

Some have declared that the Cosmos is material and nothing else...they dismiss the possibility of something more, a spirit, just like centuries ago the uncharted New World and a round Earth was.

Such is the nature of the discussions of God over the years - understanding like a map from the Roman Empire.

The bandwidth of this topic by those that insist on bringing it up again and again would be better served doing it in a belief site, rather than a car site.