Battleground God
Lately I got across tmp online, the philosopher’s magazine; it has a set of very interesting philosophy games. These games test your moral standing and the rationality of your religious beliefs. I being a firm believer quickly set myself to play the game, but I wasn’t trained for it. To my grunt I scored as a morally disillusioned and a rationally inconsistent loser.
But I am not an easy loser, so I began to analyze the game once more and see how it had played me down. This particular game I am writing about is called ‘battleground God’, it has a set of 17 questions, and the aim is to trap you down against God, based on the ‘problem of evil’ (which is a theory that if God is al-good, all-knowing and all-powerful why does He allow evil to happen in the world). The questions are set in such an array, that you answer one thing in the prospective of human morality and the next thing is that you are made to question God on the same moral principle and you inevitably contradict.
Here is the gist of the working of the game, if you are going to say yes to: God is all-good, al-powerful and the basis of all morality then standing on a higher moral ground and having the power to do so, He must never have allowed any suffering to happen then you have to admit that God is either indifferent to morals or maybe He just doesn’t exist, otherwise you are being rationally inconsistent. Likewise if you admit that evolution is not true because there is not enough evidence for it, then you are trapped to say that you believe in God without enough proof and you are inconsistent again. Then, if you agree that your internal conviction for God’s existence is enough, you are trapped to say that a rapist is right in his inner conviction for doing the crime for some bigger good of his own imagination. Again if you say that God cannot make circular squares then you have to say that He is either not all-powerful or He is bound to abide by some kind of rationality, therefore, He is not the ultimate and that something is above Him. And then if it’s morally wrong to torture the innocent, why would God let innocent babies burn in fire. Therefore any person who believes in God would be bound to lose this test and prove to be harboring irrational beliefs.
So are we irrational and is our belief system inconsistent, is God really cruel or maybe just incapable? No, I don’t think so; I think the ‘problem of evil’ is a theory inconsistently put. It is a theory based on premises designed for an end and disregards many other possible premises that if considered would contradict this end and would change the whole mindset of the thinker.
Here are some I have made;
God made nature on laws
all parts are connected by laws
laws make the machine go right
when laws are working the machine is happy
man is the only machine that can break the law
God tells the man-machine the right laws.
man breaks the law
Makes breakage, sufferings, and unhappiness.
The whole system gets affected.
Thus power given to man God is all good and temporary given to man made all the mess.
OR
God wants to test man.
all-comfort is not a good test
He inflicts sufferings on him
OR
God is a good teacher.
Good teacher never leaks the answers.
Good teacher marks justly.
Good teacher punishes and rewards.
Good teacher repeats lessons and warns.
Good teacher does not pass a failing pupil.
Therefore He allows sufferings to prevail.
OR
God loves man the most.
God gave him one of His godly powers of free-will.
God expects good from man.
God knows he has made him perfect.
So He is willing to forgive.
He just wants him to return to Him after he has erred.
Should man not fulfill this minimal criteria, after all the sense, knowledge and ability he possesses.
Therefore it can be shown that several logical answer can be found to why evil exist, and why God wouldn’t eliminate it from the present system, a system made on trial bases; the trail of man. Not the ultimate, indestructible, ever-lasting system, which would stand as a case of God’s real intentions, where the promise of knowledge is to be fulfilled. The trick is to define God’s position on one’s own dictate and ignoring what God actually has to say about His own position. The fallacy used in this game is the ‘straw-man fallacy’, which is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position and attacks that ‘straw-man’ position.
Play the game and have fun.
But I am not an easy loser, so I began to analyze the game once more and see how it had played me down. This particular game I am writing about is called ‘battleground God’, it has a set of 17 questions, and the aim is to trap you down against God, based on the ‘problem of evil’ (which is a theory that if God is al-good, all-knowing and all-powerful why does He allow evil to happen in the world). The questions are set in such an array, that you answer one thing in the prospective of human morality and the next thing is that you are made to question God on the same moral principle and you inevitably contradict.
Here is the gist of the working of the game, if you are going to say yes to: God is all-good, al-powerful and the basis of all morality then standing on a higher moral ground and having the power to do so, He must never have allowed any suffering to happen then you have to admit that God is either indifferent to morals or maybe He just doesn’t exist, otherwise you are being rationally inconsistent. Likewise if you admit that evolution is not true because there is not enough evidence for it, then you are trapped to say that you believe in God without enough proof and you are inconsistent again. Then, if you agree that your internal conviction for God’s existence is enough, you are trapped to say that a rapist is right in his inner conviction for doing the crime for some bigger good of his own imagination. Again if you say that God cannot make circular squares then you have to say that He is either not all-powerful or He is bound to abide by some kind of rationality, therefore, He is not the ultimate and that something is above Him. And then if it’s morally wrong to torture the innocent, why would God let innocent babies burn in fire. Therefore any person who believes in God would be bound to lose this test and prove to be harboring irrational beliefs.
So are we irrational and is our belief system inconsistent, is God really cruel or maybe just incapable? No, I don’t think so; I think the ‘problem of evil’ is a theory inconsistently put. It is a theory based on premises designed for an end and disregards many other possible premises that if considered would contradict this end and would change the whole mindset of the thinker.
Here are some I have made;
God made nature on laws
all parts are connected by laws
laws make the machine go right
when laws are working the machine is happy
man is the only machine that can break the law
God tells the man-machine the right laws.
man breaks the law
Makes breakage, sufferings, and unhappiness.
The whole system gets affected.
Thus power given to man God is all good and temporary given to man made all the mess.
OR
God wants to test man.
all-comfort is not a good test
He inflicts sufferings on him
OR
God is a good teacher.
Good teacher never leaks the answers.
Good teacher marks justly.
Good teacher punishes and rewards.
Good teacher repeats lessons and warns.
Good teacher does not pass a failing pupil.
Therefore He allows sufferings to prevail.
OR
God loves man the most.
God gave him one of His godly powers of free-will.
God expects good from man.
God knows he has made him perfect.
So He is willing to forgive.
He just wants him to return to Him after he has erred.
Should man not fulfill this minimal criteria, after all the sense, knowledge and ability he possesses.
Therefore it can be shown that several logical answer can be found to why evil exist, and why God wouldn’t eliminate it from the present system, a system made on trial bases; the trail of man. Not the ultimate, indestructible, ever-lasting system, which would stand as a case of God’s real intentions, where the promise of knowledge is to be fulfilled. The trick is to define God’s position on one’s own dictate and ignoring what God actually has to say about His own position. The fallacy used in this game is the ‘straw-man fallacy’, which is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position and attacks that ‘straw-man’ position.
Play the game and have fun.
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