God didn't keep his words

[Compassionist]

In Genesis 2:16 and 17 the Bible (New International Version) says:
And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

If after eating the forbidden fruits, Adam and Eve died just as God had said, then that would have been just and consistent with God's Words. However, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruits, instead of just Adam and Eve just dying:
1. God evicted them from Eden.
2. God punished Eve and all her daughters (an estimated 54 billion and counting) with painful childbirths.
3. God evicted all the other species from Eden, too, and makes herbivores, parasites, carnivores and omnivores instead of making all the species non-consumers.
4. God punished humans with having to toil to survive.
5. God commanded humans to reproduce which leads to more suffering and death. Ruling over other creatures causes suffering and death to those creatures, too. "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."" - Genesis 1:28, The Bible (NIV)

These acts are cruel and unjust and totally inconsistent with what God had said to Adam and Eve which was they would just die if they ate the forbidden fruits. God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve.

I didn't ask to come into existence. No living thing does. I would have preferred it if I never existed. If God is real and actually did the things the Bible claims, then these cruel, unjust and inconsistent actions make the Biblical God evil.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #90]

The Tanager, thank you for another careful and stimulating reply.

C. Parsimony
My definition isn’t arbitrary - it’s contextual. In explanatory reasoning, parsimony means minimizing ontological kinds while maximizing explanatory reach. The free will debate concerns causal ontology. Determinism invokes one causal grammar - physical processes - while libertarianism introduces a second, unverified kind: immaterial volition that intervenes without measurable trace. By Ockham’s principle, the single-cause framework is simpler and therefore preferable unless evidence compels adding another.

D. Scientific Studies
I agree the predictive accuracy of readiness-potential studies isn’t perfect, but the critical asymmetry remains: awareness never precedes neural preparation. Even if we interpret these potentials as motor readiness rather than final choice, consciousness still follows the causal cascade. If libertarian causation were real, we should observe awareness leading readiness. We never do.

E. Rationality
You’re right that determinism doesn’t guarantee truth, but it allows for causal feedback. Deterministic regularity underwrites replication, falsification, and correction - the hallmarks of science. Useful illusions exist, but only systems constrained by consistent causal law can progressively reduce them. Dualism offers no equivalent epistemic mechanism linking immaterial intention to reliable inference.

F. Moral Agency
Shared physical laws make intersubjective calibration possible. Color blindness doesn’t refute representational realism; instruments and other observers correct the mismatch. Determinism grounds this consistency by binding all observers to the same causal structure.

G. First Cause
If “potential” describes a timeless capacity, then “intention” becomes incoherent - since intention presupposes a before and after. A timeless being might instantiate reality, but it can’t decide to. By contrast, cosmological naturalism explains emergence without contradiction: the Hartle–Hawking and Vilenkin models treat spacetime as arising from quantum conditions that are probabilistic yet law-governed. Quantum indeterminacy doesn’t create agency; and through decoherence, those fluctuations average out at the macroscopic scale, yielding the causal stability our universe displays.

Thus, determinism - understood statistically at the quantum level and classically at the macroscopic - remains the most parsimonious and coherent framework available.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #91]

C. Parsimony

My definition isn’t arbitrary - it’s contextual. In explanatory reasoning, parsimony means minimizing ontological kinds while maximizing explanatory reach. The free will debate concerns causal ontology. Determinism invokes one causal grammar - physical processes - while libertarianism introduces a second, unverified kind: immaterial volition that intervenes without measurable trace. By Ockham’s principle, the single-cause framework is simpler and therefore preferable unless evidence compels adding another.

Okay, but the number of causes in the chain to get to a decision is greater in determinism (many physical entities are involved) than libertarian free will (just one entity responsible), so why isn’t parsimony about that? Both of those are arbitrary. Instead, in explanatory reasoning, parsimony is about having fewer assumptions or pieces to explain. And our sides are equal in that.


D. Scientific Studies

I agree the predictive accuracy of readiness-potential studies isn’t perfect, but the critical asymmetry remains: awareness never precedes neural preparation. Even if we interpret these potentials as motor readiness rather than final choice, consciousness still follows the causal cascade. If libertarian causation were real, we should observe awareness leading readiness. We never do.

Matsuhashi & Hallett seemed to say we do. But even if we don’t, why would that asymmetry be critical? Why should a choice about how to move precede the brain getting the body ready to receive that order so that it can be carried out? You keep saying that is critical, but why?

E. Rationality

You’re right that determinism doesn’t guarantee truth, but it allows for causal feedback. Deterministic regularity underwrites replication, falsification, and correction - the hallmarks of science. Useful illusions exist, but only systems constrained by consistent causal law can progressively reduce them. Dualism offers no equivalent epistemic mechanism linking immaterial intention to reliable inference.

When I tell you what I believe or the scientist reads off the data from a test, they aren’t receiving the physical things that encode those neural representations, so feedback itself seems like an illusion. All we have is our own encoded neurons. That something is a replication or was falsified or was corrected are all neural representations from within that we can’t trust, if determinism is true. Determinism offers no epistemic mechanism at all.

There are various dualistic mechanisms proposed. For instance, Aristotle spoke of the active intellect abstracting the intelligible form from the phantasm (object’s image) and the passive intellect receives that form.


F. Moral Agency

Shared physical laws make intersubjective calibration possible. Color blindness doesn’t refute representational realism; instruments and other observers correct the mismatch. Determinism grounds this consistency by binding all observers to the same causal structure.

But we are the result of our neurons and neural representations, not the illusory concepts our neural representations are presenting to us about what is going on in the outside world.


G. First Cause

If “potential” describes a timeless capacity, then “intention” becomes incoherent - since intention presupposes a before and after. A timeless being might instantiate reality, but it can’t decide to.

Why does intention presuppose a before and after? Acting on an intention might, but why just an intention? And why can’t a timeless being decide to instantiate reality?

By contrast, cosmological naturalism explains emergence without contradiction: the Hartle–Hawking and Vilenkin models treat spacetime as arising from quantum conditions that are probabilistic yet law-governed. Quantum indeterminacy doesn’t create agency; and through decoherence, those fluctuations average out at the macroscopic scale, yielding the causal stability our universe displays.

Thus, determinism - understood statistically at the quantum level and classically at the macroscopic - remains the most parsimonious and coherent framework available.

Even in describing the quantum region as “timeless” mathematically, you still have a reality that exists in some sense and we still need to ask why did this timeless state produce the universe at all. If that region is truly eternal, timeless, changeless, etc. there is no reason for it to suddenly yield a new state unless something outside of it acted to bring about the change. Purely physical, mechanical processes (as determinism proposes) require time. We still seem to need something else.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #92]

C. Parsimony

Parsimony isn’t about counting objects in a causal chain but about counting ontological kinds. Determinism posits one causal grammar - physical law - whereas libertarian free will posits two (physical and immaterial). The number of neurons involved is irrelevant; all share the same causal kind. Adding an unverified immaterial volition doubles ontology without adding explanatory power. So, determinism remains the simpler hypothesis.

D. Scientific Studies

The asymmetry matters because it reveals the temporal direction of causation. If libertarian agency existed, conscious intention would originate action; instead, neural activity precedes awareness. Matsuhashi & Hallett found awareness latency, not reversed causation - participants interrupted movement once they noticed intention, confirming that consciousness reports rather than initiates readiness. Preparation before awareness fits predictive-processing models: the brain prepares possible actions, and consciousness updates after selection. That’s causal sequencing, not mere staging.

E. Rationality

Determinism doesn’t undermine epistemic trust; it explains it. Neural representations are causally linked to external states through sensory interaction constrained by the same physical laws. Because causes are regular, feedback loops can calibrate errors. If a belief produces successful predictions, its neural encoding correlates with reality via lawful covariance. Dualistic “active intellect” proposals lack testable mechanisms showing how a non-physical process interfaces with neurons. Determinism grounds reliability by shared causal structure; dualism dissolves it into mystery.

F. Moral Agency

Yes, our perceptions are neural representations - but they track external patterns through evolutionary calibration. Color vision, for instance, is representational yet useful because wavelength-to-perception mappings are consistent across observers. Likewise, moral cognition evolved to promote cooperative stability; deterministic alignment of causes allows collective correction. If experiences were wholly disconnected from causal reality, communication itself would fail - which it demonstrably doesn’t.

G. First Cause

Intention presupposes sequence because it distinguishes preference before action. A timeless entity cannot change state from “not-creating” to “creating” without temporal order. Calling that “decision” within timelessness smuggles time back in. Quantum-cosmological models (Hartle–Hawking, Vilenkin) avoid this by treating the boundary condition probabilistically - no before, only a self-contained spacetime manifold where time emerges from relations within it. We needn’t posit an extra “chooser”; physical law itself encodes potential transitions without deliberation.

Determinism offers:

One causal ontology (parsimony)
Empirical correlation between brain and awareness (neuroscience)
Lawful feedback enabling epistemic reliability (science)
Coherent moral realism grounded in shared causality (ethics)
A self-contained cosmological framework (physics)

Adding an immaterial will explains none of these better and introduces contradictions. Therefore, determinism remains the most coherent and parsimonious explanatory framework available.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #93]

Thanks for your response. Since we are taking about this topic in the other thread that is more narrowly focused on free will vs determinism, I've responded to your points here there. I don't want to have the same conversation in two places.

In this thread you seen to have brought up determinism as support for God, if He exists, being evil. Is your case dependent on determinism or, even if determinism is false, would you still say the biblical God is clearly evil?

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #94]

The Biblical God does more evil than good, so he/she/it/they is/are evil. Given the lack of evidence for all the alleged events in the Bible, I am also convinced that the Biblical God is imaginary. I created a thread requesting evidence for Biblical events: viewtopic.php?t=42683

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #95]

Thanks! I'll check that other thread out.

What makes you believe the Biblical God, if He exists, does more evil than good?

[Compassionist]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #95]

Thanks! I'll check that other thread out.

What makes you believe the Biblical God, if He exists, does more evil than good?

There are many, many reasons! Please see: https://www.evilbible.com and https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/categories.html if you have the time to explore both websites in detail. If you don't have that much time, here are some of the reasons the Biblical God, if he/she/it/they exist(s), has done/is doing/will do more evil than good.

God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve

In Genesis 2:16 and 17 the Bible (New International Version) says:
And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

If after eating the forbidden fruits, Adam and Eve died just as God had said, then that would have been just and consistent with God's Words. However, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruits, instead of just Adam and Eve just dying:
1. God evicted them from Eden.
2. God punished Eve and all her daughters (an estimated 54 billion and counting) with painful childbirths.
3. God evicted all the other species from Eden, too, and makes herbivores, parasites, carnivores and omnivores instead of making all the species non-consumers.
4. God punished humans with having to toil to survive.
5. God commanded humans to reproduce which leads to more suffering and death. Ruling over other creatures causes suffering and death to those creatures, too. "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."" - Genesis 1:28, The Bible (NIV)

These acts are cruel and unjust and totally inconsistent with what God had said to Adam and Eve which was they would just die if they ate the forbidden fruits. God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve.

If God had made Adam, Eve, the angels, all the other species all-knowing and all-powerful, then they would all be making perfect choices. It is 100% God's fault that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. If they were all-knowing and all-powerful, they would not have the desire to gain knowledge, as they would already have known everything there is to know.

I didn't ask to come into existence. No living thing does. I would have preferred it if I had never existed. If God is real and actually did the things the Bible claims, then these cruel, unjust and inconsistent actions make the Biblical God evil.

Global genocide - The Global Flood

Genesis 6:13, 7:21-23 (ESV)

“And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’ … And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.”
Summary: God kills virtually every living creature on Earth, sparing only Noah's family and the selected animals in Noah's Ark.

Genocide of Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis 19:24-25 (ESV)

“Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”
Summary: Two entire cities are burned alive - men, women, and children - for collective sin.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt (mass suffering and death)

Exodus 12:29-30 (ESV)

“At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night … and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.”
Summary: Every Egyptian firstborn - including infants, sentient animals and prisoners - is killed by God.

Genocides ordered in Canaan

Deuteronomy 20:16-17 (ESV)

“But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded.”
Summary: Explicit divine command to exterminate entire populations.

1 Samuel 15:2-3 (ESV)

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel … Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
Summary: A total genocide command including infants and animals.

Slavery sanctioned and regulated, instead of banned

Leviticus 25:44-46 (ESV)

“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. … You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers … you shall not rule one over another ruthlessly.”
Summary: Permanent enslavement of foreigners is explicitly permitted.

Human child sacrifice ordered (later revoked)

Genesis 22:2, 12 (ESV)

“He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering…’”
“He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy…’”
Summary: God tests Abraham by commanding the killing of his child - a psychological act of cruelty, even if halted. Why would an all-knowing and all-powerful being need to test anyone? It makes no sense.

Mass slaughter of boys, men and non-virgin women and sexual slavery of virgin girls

Numbers 31:17-18 (ESV)

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”
Summary: Command to kill boys and non-virgin women; keep virgin girls as sex slaves.

Sevenfold punishment and cannibalism (threat)

Leviticus 26:27-29 (ESV)

“But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.”
Summary: God threatens to make His people resort to cannibalism as punishment.

Eternal torment in Hell

Matthew 25:46 (ESV)

“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Revelation 14:10-11 (ESV)

“He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath … and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.”

Mark 9:43-48 (ESV)

“It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire … where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Summary: Eternal conscious torment for unbelievers - infinite punishment for finite crimes.

Matthew 25:41 (ESV)

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”

Revelation 20:10 (ESV)

“...and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Luke 13:27-28 (ESV)

“But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.”

Matthew 13:49-50 (ESV)

“So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Divine deception and hardening of hearts

Exodus 9:12 (ESV)

“But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.”
Summary: God prevents Pharaoh from repenting, then punishes him for it.

2 Thessalonians 2:11 (ESV)

“Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.”
Summary: God intentionally deceives some people.

Killing for minor offenses

Numbers 15:32-36 (ESV)

“While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day… And the LORD said to Moses, ‘The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.’”

2 Kings 2:23-24 (ESV)

“He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.”
Summary: Death penalty for collecting firewood on the wrong day, and 42 small boys murdered by bears because they made fun of a prophet's baldness.

Collective punishment across generations

Exodus 20:5 (ESV)

“For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Summary: Descendants are punished for ancestors’ actions - contrary to the Bible’s own later law: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” - Ezekiel 18:20 (ESV).

Predestination

Ephesians 1:4-5 (ESV)

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,”

John 6:44 (ESV)

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”
Summary: God predestined who would be saved and who would be damned forever. It is absurd and utterly cruel and unjust.

Conclusion

These verses show that the Biblical God, by the Bible’s own words, kills entire populations, including children and animals, endorses slavery, inflicts suffering, threatens eternal torture in hell, hardens hearts or deceives minds, and predestinates who would be saved and who would be damned, removing moral responsibility.

When the acts attributed to God are judged by the same moral standards the Bible applies to humans - such as “You shall not kill,” “Love your neighbour,” and “Love your enemies” - they fit the description of moral evil far more often than benevolence. The Biblical God is a hypocrite who has killed and has failed to love his neighbours and enemies.

That’s why I conclude that, if the Biblical God exists and the Biblical text is true, His recorded actions are predominantly evil rather than good.

There are also extra-Biblical reasons. At least 99.9% of all the species that have existed so far on Earth are already extinct. Every year, non-vegans cause suffering and death to 80 billion sentient land organisms (e.g. cattle, chickens, pigs, lambs, goats, ducks, turkeys, etc.) and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms (e.g. fish, lobsters, octopuses, crabs, etc.). Life is full of suffering, injustice, and death. An allegedly all-knowing and all-powerful being, such as the Biblical God, could have prevented all suffering, injustice, and death, but failed to do so. He could have made all organisms made of energy that don't need to consume anything to live forever, but he didn't do that. So, all suffering, injustice, and death are his fault. If he had not created anything, no one would have the burden of existence or the risk of making mistakes. If he had made everyone he had made all-knowing and all-powerful, then everyone would always make perfect choices, and no one would have made any mistakes due to ignorance or incompetence or trickery.

I am an agnostic regarding the existence of God(s) because it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God(s). However, I am convinced that the Biblical God is imaginary and evil. He is imaginary because there is no evidence for the claims made in the Bible. He is evil because of his many evil words and actions in the Bible. I created a thread requesting evidence for Biblical events: viewtopic.php?t=42683 If you can prove Biblical events by evidence, please do. The Bible doesn't count as evidence for the claims in the Bible, just as other religious books don't count as evidence for the claims in those religious books.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #97]

That's a long list, for sure, and each one deserves thought and attention. I'm going to try to simplify things for our discussion, however. Some of these examples, assuming you are interpreting them correctly, wouldn't logically lead to rejecting the God spoken of in the Bible as evil since those particular passages could be misapplied to God by humans. You could reject the inspiration of the entire Bible, but God may still exist and some of the sources within the collection later compiled and known as the Bible still be reliable. So, for now, I say we put those off to one side. Which would leave these examples, as far as I could tell:

1. Creating beings without asking if they wanted to be created

This is logically impossible. They would already have to exist in order to ask them, so they couldn't then be created.


2. Creating beings who can freely choose to do evil

Which of the following do you think is better and why?

(a) having a community of beings that treat each other perfectly

(b) having a community of beings that love each other perfectly (which will include treating each other perfectly)

(c) having no community of people at all


3. Creating beings who die

Why do you think a world without death is better than a world with death?


4. Creating beings who consume other beings

Why do you think a world without consumption of others is better than a world with it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #98]

Thank you, The Tanager. I appreciate that you’re approaching this systematically. Let me address each of your points in turn. Are you going to address later each of the issues I raised in my previous post about the reasons why the Biblical God is evil?

1. Creating beings without asking if they wanted to be created

You’re right that literal consent before existence is logically impossible, but the moral issue isn’t pre-creation consent - it’s creating sentient beings who are then forced to suffer and die without their consent once they exist. I used to be a Christian. I used to pray to God to change the past and prevent my conception, because I hate my existence. I wish I had never existed. Life is unbearably full of suffering, injustice, and death. Despite my best efforts, I can't prevent all suffering, injustice, and death. So, I prayed for the prevention of my existence, but God never answered my prayer.

A truly omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent creator would foresee the immense suffering inherent in biological life - predation, disease, natural disasters, extinction - and would refrain from creating such a system unless there were a way to guarantee eternal happiness for all sentient beings.

So the moral question becomes: Why create a world where trillions must suffer and perish for others to survive, when omnipotence could achieve eternal joy without pain or death?

If omnipotence means “able to do anything logically possible,” then creating blissful sentient beings without suffering is certainly possible. Therefore, a God who knowingly creates a world of vast preventable suffering cannot be described as omnibenevolent.

2. Creating beings who can freely choose to do evil

Your options (a)–(c) assume that “love” requires the possibility of doing evil. I don’t think that follows.
Compassion, empathy, and cooperation can arise naturally in deterministic frameworks - as capacities, not absolute libertarian choices.

Even among humans, the ability to harm isn’t what gives love its value; it’s the capacity to care, understand, and respond to others’ well-being.
An all-powerful God could have created moral beings who always act compassionately by nature - who still experience joy, creativity, and relationship, but without cruelty or malice.

Therefore, the presence of gratuitous evil (especially natural evil and extreme suffering) doesn’t follow logically from “freedom” unless we assume God wanted such possibilities. In that case, the suffering that results is still ultimately God’s design choice.

3. Creating beings who die

Death may serve biological recycling in an unguided evolutionary system, but in a divinely designed one, it looks like planned obsolescence - sentient lives produced and discarded.

If God’s goal were an eternal loving relationship, mortality serves no purpose except to inflict loss and pain. If God’s goal were spiritual testing, then He intentionally created pain to test those He created - again implying cruelty or indifference, not omnibenevolence. Besides, why would an omniscient being need to test anyone?

A world without death would eliminate grief, disease, and decay. If God wanted souls to mature, that could occur through growth and learning in an eternal, non-suffering state. Death adds nothing that omnipotence couldn’t achieve otherwise.

4. Creating beings who consume other beings

Predation and parasitism are hallmarks of an unguided evolutionary process, not a moral design. A truly omnibenevolent creator would not make sentient creatures dependent on others’ agony and death for survival.

We can imagine countless alternatives - photosynthetic or energy-absorbing organisms, or direct energy sustenance without killing, or beings made of energy who don't need to consume anything - all logically possible for an omnipotent creator. The fact that our ecosystems run on suffering and death strongly suggests an evil God, or the non-existence of God, definitely not the existence of an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God.

Each of these examples shows that the problem isn’t misinterpretation of the text but the ethical incoherence of creating a world full of preventable suffering while claiming “God is love” - 1 John 4:16b.

If an all-powerful, all-knowing being existed and were truly omnibenevolent, there would be no need for predation, disease, death, or moral evil. Their presence is more consistent with an unintended or natural process than with a perfectly good designer.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #99]

Thank you, The Tanager. I appreciate that you’re approaching this systematically. Let me address each of your points in turn. Are you going to address later each of the issues I raised in my previous post about the reasons why the Biblical God is evil?

Thank you, Compassionist. Yes, I would love to address the specific Biblical passages you've mentioned, as I've struggled with similar concerns before, but I do appreciate you allowing us to have a more systematic and bite-size discussion of these many, varied, and important questions that I think more people should be asking themselves.

1. Creating beings without asking if they wanted to be created

You’re right that literal consent before existence is logically impossible, but the moral issue isn’t pre-creation consent - it’s creating sentient beings who are then forced to suffer and die without their consent once they exist.

Thanks for clarifying that. We'll focus on the other parts.


2. Creating beings who can freely choose to do evil

Your options (a)–(c) assume that “love” requires the possibility of doing evil. I don’t think that follows.
Compassion, empathy, and cooperation can arise naturally in deterministic frameworks - as capacities, not absolute libertarian choices.

Even among humans, the ability to harm isn’t what gives love its value; it’s the capacity to care, understand, and respond to others’ well-being.

An all-powerful God could have created moral beings who always act compassionately by nature - who still experience joy, creativity, and relationship, but without cruelty or malice.

How can robots have compassion or empathy? They can do good things or bad things, depending on their coding, but how can they love? I receive love from my family; I can't receive love from programmed devices. I think love does require freedom to choose otherwise. While good actions can be forced, I don't see how love can, logically.


3. Creating beings who die

If God’s goal were an eternal loving relationship, mortality serves no purpose except to inflict loss and pain. If God’s goal were spiritual testing, then He intentionally created pain to test those He created - again implying cruelty or indifference, not omnibenevolence. Besides, why would an omniscient being need to test anyone?

A world without death would eliminate grief, disease, and decay. If God wanted souls to mature, that could occur through growth and learning in an eternal, non-suffering state. Death adds nothing that omnipotence couldn’t achieve otherwise.

I think this depends on the previous question. I think a world with free creatures who become a community that perfectly loves each other is the best option. But growth like that requires genuine ability to choose otherwise in situations that allow virtue or vice to come about in us with enough epistemic distance from God that love and trust are not coerced.

That world needs real risk, consequence, and limitation. Even the physics of something like water (if not water, it would be something else) that makes it possible for a child to drown also sustains life itself. Death and suffering limits time which creates urgency and seriousness in moral choice. Death breaks our attachment to self-centered immortality. Death humbles us despite our station, wealth, and strength.

A painless world yields beings who might be kind, but not compassionate from having borne another's burdens nor faithful through adversity. Courage presupposes danger. Compassion presupposes suffering. Forgiveness presupposes wrongdoing. Perseverance presupposes hardship. Love in a world of pain is much deeper than anything a painless world could give us. Love that costs is essential to forming beings capable of the kind of love and compassion you long for.


4. Creating beings who consume other beings

Predation and parasitism are hallmarks of an unguided evolutionary process, not a moral design. A truly omnibenevolent creator would not make sentient creatures dependent on others’ agony and death for survival.

We can imagine countless alternatives - photosynthetic or energy-absorbing organisms, or direct energy sustenance without killing, or beings made of energy who don't need to consume anything - all logically possible for an omnipotent creator. The fact that our ecosystems run on suffering and death strongly suggests an evil God, or the non-existence of God, definitely not the existence of an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God.

I think this goes along with what I've said in #3. Why would suffering through the specific mode of one animal consuming another change the calculus?


Atheistic alternative

If an all-powerful, all-knowing being existed and were truly omnibenevolent, there would be no need for predation, disease, death, or moral evil. Their presence is more consistent with an unintended or natural process than with a perfectly good designer.

How can an unintended or natural process give us objective good and evil at all?