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bobzills
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No, because God must be all loving, it cannot be any other way. If something is not all loving, it would not be God, because all-loving is part of the essence of God.
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Matariel
Guest
Yes, omnibenevolence is one of the defining characteristics of the Judeo-Christian God, along with omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, omnipotence, and personality.
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MYLORDANDMYGOD1
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Hi, AnyoneAnybody! 
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Starwynd
Guest
If God was all loving then he wouldn’t have committed the crime of genocide, regardless of how righteous the act was. Such an act can not be considered an act of love.
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
You don’t really believe this. Deists do not believe God is all loving. Polytheists have many God’s that are indifferent and not all loving.
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
Hi MYLORDANDMYGOD1! Great to see you!Hi, AnyoneAnybody!
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
When did God commit genocide? (what event do you have in mind?)
Peter Kreeft has a great book on the meaning of suffering I strongly recommend. He is a Catholic Apologist and a Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He also has a MySpace page and welcomes questions.
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
A person can live a whole life without ever having anyone respond so positively to something ts/he says.
Thank you for your kind words!
Thank you for your kind words!
You’ve summed up both my thoughts and your’s in a wonderfully pithy, punchy, succinct and a downright “keyboard efficient” way.
Touche!
Of course, that “proof” doesn’t actually prove that (“at most” or otherwise) God is not loving. It merely proves that the “prover” doesn’t know what “God’s love” means.
All atheistic “proofs” (of anything related to God) are ALWAYS based on incorrect meanings of foundational terms.
Once you find the term or terms which are simply wrong, the “proof” becomes simply nonsense.
Then, because the so-called atheist will not agree that the disputed terms could POSSIBLY have any meaning but their chosen ones, the “discussion” turns into an atheistic shout-down fest, which would lead to actual physical violence if it were in a venue where that would be possible.
Agreeing to disagree is not allowed in a so-called atheist’s “ethics”. All basic (axiomatic) disagreements are existentially dangerous (to mankind as a whole, where “mankind” means those “enlightened humans of the atheistic persuasion”) and necessitate “surgical removal” of the offending “non-mankind oriented” person.
…but then, I ramble on again, don’t I?
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bobzills
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See post #214. I am speaking of God as known by Catholic teaching.
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magisterfaust
Guest
So. Why would an “all loving god” tell me that if I do not worship him
and love him, i will be cast aside and left to eat the flesh of my offspring, among other horrible punishments.
Also… I have not read all the posts, but as for **
Atheists: you cannot disprove the existence of GOd**
Christians. You cannot prove the existence of God
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
I see. So, you are not responding to the original prompt for Atheists. You want to say that the God as believed in by Catholics does not exist. Fine, but this is not the intent of the thread.
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
Why would you not worship that which is supremely worthy of being worshipped?
Why would you not love that which is supremely worthy of being loved?
You choose the “punishments” that you receive in hell, which in your case, apparently, you would choose to be eating the flesh of your offspring. Why would you choose THAT particular punishment?
Do you see “worshipping” ANYTHING, or “loving” ANYTHING, even the most worthy object of those actions, as “demeaning” or “insulting” to you?
The real reason that you find “worshipping” and “loving” the thing most worthy of those actions is that you don’t actually understand the meaning OF those actions. Until you discover that YOU are not the ultimate object to be “worshipped” and “loved” the entire subject of anything related to God will be an insult to you.
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bobzills
Guest
I am following the logic of the reasoning academically and I said ahead of time that I am not an atheist but that this was an argument that I heard. I don;t know why I have to keep repeating this.
It was proposed that an atheist could not prove that God does not exist.
I am giving you one argument used by atheists and asking what can be done with it by way of logical and resonable refutation.
Here is the argument:
1.If God exists, He must be all loving.
2.An all loving God would not permit evil.
3.Evil exists.
4. Therefore God does not exist.
This is the argument that is sometimes heard…
So, it is necessary for theists to show where it has gone wrong.
So the question is what is wrong with this line of reasoning used by atheists?
As I see it, the flaw in the argument might come in with number 2. Although, it is still difficult for a lot of people to see why an all loving God does permit evil? You have to recognise that there is a lot of suffering in the world.
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
You keep having to repeat yourself because your major premise
“1.If God exists, He must be all loving.”
is wrong.
I am repeating myself by saying this is not necessarily so. Deists see God as uninterested/aloof.
Assume a Catholic God, as you said, and argument simply disproves a loving God, but neither disproves a hateful God nor an uninterested God, nor anything else on the spectrum.
“1.If God exists, He must be all loving.”
is wrong.
I am repeating myself by saying this is not necessarily so. Deists see God as uninterested/aloof.
Assume a Catholic God, as you said, and argument simply disproves a loving God, but neither disproves a hateful God nor an uninterested God, nor anything else on the spectrum.
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
You are incorrect.
God simply IS all-loving axiomatically. His “all-lovingness” does not depend on His existence. Existence qua existence depends on Him.
Premise #1 SHOULD be: God is all-loving.
And deists are also incorrect.
God is just as “interested” as He is all-loving. That’s actually what “all-loving” means!
The argument disproves nothing but that the “disprover” has no idea about the definitions of the terms he is using in his “disproof”.
If you actually USE the meant definitions of the terms as used in the “disproof” all it “disproves” is the inability of the disprover to be non-self-contradictory.
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Dauphin
Guest
There’s no need for them to do so. Instead, we need to demonstrate it from reason - and we can.
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
I think you might missing something. You and I may believe the first premise to be true. We might even argue effectively that it is true. But if one is arguing that God cannot be proven to exist, it is not satisfactory to simply prove that God is not loving.
This is what is being argued. It’s flat wrong.
This is what is being argued. It’s flat wrong.
You are incorrect.
God simply IS all-loving axiomatically. His “all-lovingness” does not depend on His existence. Existence qua existence depends on Him.
Premise #1 SHOULD be: God is all-loving.
And deists are also incorrect.
God is just as “interested” as He is all-loving. That’s actually what “all-loving” means!
The argument disproves nothing but that the “disprover” has no idea about the definitions of the terms he is using in his “disproof”.
If you actually USE the meant definitions of the terms as used in the “disproof” all it “disproves” is the inability of the disprover to be non-self-contradictory.
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
Proving that a thing is both nonexistent and ANYTHING ELSE makes the ANYTHING ELSE rather irrelevant if that ANYTHING ELSE is dependant on it’s “host’s” existence.
So, yeah, we agree.
<chortle, chortle>My point was that it’s silly for two parties to argue about two different things, one being “God” and the other being “god who isn’t God”, with the expectation of any outcome other than the eventual realization that they are arguing about two unrelated and different things.
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AnyoneAnybody
Guest
You make valid point. Most disagreements I’ve seen get down to ambiguities that once resolved make arguments vanish.Proving that a thing is both nonexistent and ANYTHING ELSE makes the ANYTHING ELSE rather irrelevant if that ANYTHING ELSE is dependant on it’s “host’s” existence.
So, yeah, we agree.
My point was that it’s silly for two parties to argue about two different things, one being “God” and the other being “god who isn’t God”, with the expectation of any outcome other than the eventual realization that they are arguing about two unrelated and different things.
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Nino
Guest
I had my first job at age 10,I picked beans on a farm over the summer at 25cents a bushel…later I had other jobs,in plants,factories,stores,a nite watchman,an armed guard,a janitor,postman etc.all before becoming a teacher…a high school teacher in a Catholic school…I have received over 500 hits on my email re: classmates.com from former students…one of the basic themes from them to me was that I was an understanding,sensitive,knowledgable (and funny)educator…I feel its because of my life before I became a certified teacher that made me that. Thus in life in general…our Creator,God…Jesus called ‘him’ father…re:Our father in heaven etc…is quite a smart dad for in exeperience lies life…one of the signs in my classroom was.‘storms make oaks take deeper roots"without pain and suffering we are like the pod people as illustrated in the classic flick…"the body snatchers’ just a dull,unimaginative clod working in an ant colony…thank you God these scars prove your love!!!
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