What type of design is this?

[OnceConvinced]

Presuming God is real and presuming demons and Satan is real...

Presuming God created them as angels and then the ones that rebelled became the demons, let by Satan himself. These fallen angels became so corrupt that they became completely evil, with no redeeming features at all.

So God created these beings and for whatever reason they became pure evil. Yet God, even if he didn't know for sure, had a good idea they would become that way. Yet he created them anyway, knowing they would be come corrupted and turn against him.

Or maybe he had no idea at all? Maybe their corruption was a complete surprise to him?

The thing is for them to become corrupt, they must have been designed in such a way that would allow them to become corrupt.

So....
What sort of design would this be?

Malevolent?
Incompetent?
Intelligent?

Please justify your answer.

[jgh7]

[Replying to post 39 by jgh7]

Do you object to God performing any sort of punishment at all, or do you object only because you disagree with the kind of punishment?

You didn't really address what I said:

We sentence people to jail for varying lengths of time. The sentence is usually a reflection of the nature of the crime. The death sentence is used sparingly and in many states is no longer applied. We offer rehabilitation, parole and early release. Sometimes we do feel guilty when we sentence people to jail.
With God, there is one sentence for all crimes.

Are you happy with a one-size-fits-all punishment system? Why?

I'm happy with it. Each day of our life is an opportunity to come to God. We have plenty of opportunities in our life. So if after our entire life we chose not to seek Him or follow Him, then it seems fair for Him not to grant us eternity with Him.

As for the whole Hell debate, I personally don't believe in eternal torture, and my interpretation from scriptures is that Hell is a second death and thus nonexistence.

(My added italics) Why should anyone care what you believe? This highlights one of the big problems with the alleged word of God. Everyone has their own version. Is it any wonder that some people don't believe any of it.

I think the real reason people don't believe is because they don't care or don't want to know God. It's not important or it doesn't suit their lifestyle. If knowing God was important, they would seek Him. When they don't care to know Him, they look for reasons to dismiss Him.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 41 by jgh7]

brunumb: Are you happy with a one-size-fits-all punishment system?
jgh7: I'm happy with it.

I doubt you would be satisfied if that system applied to justice here on earth. In fact, I'm sure that most people would probably regard it as totally unethical and immoral.

I think the real reason people don't believe is because they don't care or don't want to know God. It's not important or it doesn't suit their lifestyle. If knowing God was important, they would seek Him. When they don't care to know Him, they look for reasons to dismiss Him.

You have to believe God exists in the first place if any of that is to even begin to make sense. My lifestyle is probably no different from any of the genuine Christians out there and probably better than many of the professed Christians. I have no reason to reject God in order to validate my lifestyle. If God chooses to play hide and seek, what hope have mere humans got of actually finding him. Those who claim to know God are either lying or deluded. I think the real reason people believe is because they were inculcated with that belief and are incapable of genuinely challenging it. If it is the truth then it should survive close scrutiny. Cognitive dissonance will prevent people looking too closely because they deeply fear the loss of their belief. Animals kept in a cage for most of their lives often show a reluctance to leave when the door is opened.

[Tcg]

So if after our entire life we chose not to seek Him or follow Him,

You are making the false assumption that everyone who rejects the concept of God never sought nor tried to follow Him.

Many have spent a great deal of effort over decades to seek and follow Him and come to the honest conclusion that there is no Him to seek or follow.

...then it seems fair for Him not to grant us eternity with Him.

That sounds fair to me. Let those of us who noticed that He never gave any evidence worth accepting our own eternal paradise without Him.

I think the real reason people don't believe is because they don't care or don't want to know God.

While this may ease your conscience, there as plenty of evidence to the contrary.

If knowing God was important, they would seek Him. When they don't care to know Him, they look for reasons to dismiss Him.

As I've already explained, many seek Him for decades and come to the obvious conclusion that there is no Him to seek. It seems that you are simply looking for an excuse to not consider the real reasons some people reject the concept of God.

If there were a God and if this God were truly just, there'd be no need to punish those who don't buy the weak support put forth to support the concept of His existence. At the end of one's life, assuming the mythological concept of an afterlife, He'd simply say, "My bad, I obviously didn't make my existence clear. Do you want to spend eternal paradise with me or without."

Only a narcissistic monster would punish humans for His mistake. And yes, annihilation rather than eternal paradise is punishment. Just because you can't stomach the idea of Hell doesn't turn your idea into a just solution.

[Wootah]

Presuming God is real and presuming demons and Satan is real...

Presuming God created them as angels and then the ones that rebelled became the demons, let by Satan himself. These fallen angels became so corrupt that they became completely evil, with no redeeming features at all.

So God created these beings and for whatever reason they became pure evil. Yet God, even if he didn't know for sure, had a good idea they would become that way. Yet he created them anyway, knowing they would be come corrupted and turn against him.

Or maybe he had no idea at all? Maybe their corruption was a complete surprise to him?

The thing is for them to become corrupt, they must have been designed in such a way that would allow them to become corrupt.

So....
What sort of design would this be?

Malevolent?
Incompetent?
Intelligent?

Please justify your answer.

What is an example of malevolent, incompetent and intelligent design?

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 44 by Wootah]

What is an example of malevolent, incompetent and intelligent design?

Up to three quarters of all human conceptions fail to come to term without any human intervention involved.

[OnceConvinced]

[Replying to post 26 by OnceConvinced]

Hand waving an argument away does not somehow invalidate it.

It wasn't hand waving away. I explained why it's not relevant.

God created beings with moral freedom. That by nature includes the risk of corruption.

How so?

Do we blame the system operator when they enter the wrong data and it corrupts the system? No we don't. The system can only be corrupted if it was designed to allow that corruption to occur.

It's like my analogy of the developer who creates a piece of software that includes a self destruct mechanism that causes the computer to explode and destroy everything within a 5 mile radius. The operator may have indeed used their freewill to press that button even though the manual says not to, but that does not make it their fault when the computer explodes and kills everyone.

This is why your argument of freewill holds no water in this debate. It's not the freewill of the being with the freewill that causes the corruption. The corruption can only occur if the developer (the creator) designed the system in a way where it would be come corrupted.

However, moral freedom is neither malevolent nor incompetent. You have ignored a fundamental problem with your reasoning.

No I haven't. It is you that has ignored the fundamental problem and that is it's not freewill or the actions of a free being that causes corruption. If something exercises its freewill and corruption occurs its to do with the system that was designed.

Either it was designed unwittingly to become corrupted (incompetence) or it was designed deliberately to become corrupt (malevolence).

[OnceConvinced]

What is an example of malevolent, incompetent and intelligent design?

I've given plenty of examples throughout this thread.

[OnceConvinced]

If it's incompetent how can it possibly be considered intelligent? They are kind of polar opposites.

Perhaps we cant continue this before you define what it means that people are incompetent? What humans cant do that they should be able to do?

Were not talking about humans, were talking about a perfect god whose works are supposedly perfect. There should never be mistakes made by a perfect god.

We're not talking about intelligence in general either. We're talking specifically about design. Nothing else. Either it's intelligent design or its not. Makes no difference if the being is intelligent or not.

Lets take an example. God created everything good. There was nothing malevolent supposedly in it. It wasnt until Lucifer decided to rebel that things went awry. Then everything became completely messed up.

Now assuming God did not deliberately create the angels in a way that would cause them to become demons, but unwittingly did instead, then it shows a lack of ability on his part. Incompetence.

Can we say that God is intelligent anyway and that he just screws up from time to time? Sure we can, but why call it intelligent design? Lets call a spade a spade and say its incompetent design. God didnt really have a clue what he was doing when he created his angels. He had no idea that a heap of them would rebel and then attempt to screw up the rest of his creation.

What would you call that if not incompetence on Gods part? If God had not been incompetent, then he would have known that at least there would be a strong likelihood his angels would rebel and mess things up completely. But what does that then make him for not adjusting his design to prevent that from happening? Wed call it evil, just as wed call a software developer who deliberately left fatal flaws in his software that he knew would be harmful to the user.

As for malevolent design, how can it be considered intelligent to do evil? Do you consider doing evil an intelligent thing?

I think evil could be done intelligently.

Then you go against bible teachings which tell us that committing evil is foolishness.

But even if you want to say evil is done intelligently, it still fits with the definition of Malevolent rather than Intelligent.

Nevertheless, we digress here. This thread isn't about the general intelligence of a being. It's about the intelligence of God's design. I want to stick solely to design more so the creation of angels.

I would not call it intelligent, or not intelligent, I would say it is evil and wrong.

I agree, which means that if a god creates a system and knows full well it will become corrupted and evil will take over, then that makes it malevolent design. If he is unaware of that, you may still be able to call him intelligent, but wed also have to say he was incompetent when it came to design.

Intelligent is defined for example to mean person has mental capacity, ability to earn and understand, ability to adjust actions in response to varying situations. Evil can also have those abilities. The more intelligent and evil person is, the more damage that person could cause. That is why I hope evil people are not very intelligent, because then they could make much more evil.

Choosing evil doesnt mean person is not intelligent, it means person is bad or evil.

But yet if one takes that intelligence and does malevolent things we dont go around saying they are intelligent. We say they are malevolent.


How about just going with what I suggested in post 26

If you say he is intelligent and deliberately created flaws in his system that he knew would become corrupted, then you can vote "malevolent design".

If you say he is intelligent and unwittingly created flaws in his system, then you can vote "incompetent design".

If you don't see any malevolence or incompetence in this system (which seems unbelievable to me), then simply vote "intelligent design".

Do you still have a problem with the poll or is this just a way to avoid having to admit that Gods design is either malevolent or incompetent?

Ok, now, if we start from the beginning, as the Bible tells, everything was good after God had created it. Then people wanted to know evil and therefore were expelled to this first death. We are now in that death, place where we can learn what good and evil truly means. For the lesson, all kind of evil things that were not possible in Gods place, can be experienced in this place. This can be compared to the matrix in the movie Matrix. Soul can experience through body many things, but the soul itself cant be destroyed by anything of this world. Obviously this lesson can be painful, but in Biblical point of view, this is just a short lesson. And for educational purpose, I think this works well and is good design, because:
1. Very realistic
2. Very educational
3. Cant destroy soul, which is the important thing, in Biblical point of view

Because of those reasons and because people have ability to choose good and do good, I think design is good. Bad thing is that many people love more evil and lies than good and truth.

Please try to remain on topic. Were not talking about human beings here. Were talking about God's creations of angels who fell and became demons. How can a god who created angels that could become so corrupted and mess with his creation in such a huge way not be considered either malevolent or incompetent?

Just because God is an intelligent being, what difference does it make to determining whether his design is malevolent or incompetent or neither?

Seeing as you are having problems with this how about I change the question for you?

Is his creations of angels that later rebelled, became evil and went out to do their best to destroy the rest of creation:

Incompetent Design?
Malevolent Design?
Benevolent Design?

[bluethread]

Why can't it be intelligent design that is malevolent to some and benevolent to others? Or, malevolent in the short term and benevolent in the long term? Or, or appear malevolent from on perspective and benevolent from another perspective?

[OnceConvinced]

Why can't it be intelligent design that is malevolent to some and benevolent to others?

We're talking specifically about the creation of angels who went on to attempt to destroy the rest of creation. Who have gone on to attempt to destroy the lives of every single person on this planet, including you and I.

How is that in any way benevolent to anyone?