John Zande, of Superstitious Naked Ape fame, and also the subject of my biological goo post, has written a book and invited us to read it. A book called, “The Owner of All Infernal Names: An Introductory Treatise on the Existence, Nature & Government of our Omnimalevolent Creator.”
First off Zande, I wish you well. Writing can be difficult and it is always nice to see someone taking up the challenge. I hope it benefits you. That said, I must apologize because I cannot possibly read your book. I also cannot review your book because I make a point to never review anything I haven’t read. It’s not you, Zande, it is totally me.
I am actually in a relationship with Christ, one that goes far beyond the intellectual and has become tightly entwined with the heart and spirit too. In fact, often when I have been trying to reason faith out, He has slipped in right under the radar, totally defied my rather pathetic attempts at intellectualism, and entered my heart. What can I say, it is what it is. What it is, is most wonderful and bedazzling treasure hunt, not unlike falling in love over and over again….
I shall attempt pull my head out of the clouds for a moment however and give you a review of the one part of your book I actually have read, the title. “All Infernal Names: An Introductory Treatise on the Existence, Nature & Government of our Omnimalevolent Creator.”
Oh, Zande! How can you possibly write a book about the very nature and government of God, a God you do not even believe in?? Does that not defy all logic and reason? A treatise on the nature of God from one who does not even know Him, refuses to even consider Him? How in the world does that work?? Since you do not know Him, you are simply critiquing a figment of your own imagination, Zande.
See, I know you do not know Him because you call Him omnimalevolent. It means “to be absolutely evil and surpass all forms of benevolence,” doesn’t it? That is enough to make me want to cry. The Creator of the universe evil and lacking benevolence?? Have you never seen a sunset Zande, I mean really seen one? Kittens? Puppy dogs? Baby toes?? Fuzzy pajamas on a cold winter night, chocolate, the snow cresting on a mountain under the moonlight?
Have you ever been underwater struggling to find your way up, broken the surface, and gulped in all that cool and delicious air like an oxygen starved beast that did not even know what they were missing?? That is what God is like, Zande. He is like a gulp of fresh air when you are drowning or a cool drink of water after being lost in the desert. He is beyond anything you can even imagine. There is a love there that is so intense, so powerful, it defies our own brain’s capacity to even conceive of such a thing.
That is why we seldom get to catch a glimpse of Him in this world, Zande. He’d blow your hard drive. There are simply not enough little neuronal connections to try to relate the experience to. Those who have caught a glimpse of His shadow have simply fallen on their face.
There is a lot of suffering and misery in the world, Zande, mostly of our own making. We are simply without excuse. We are living on a planet with enough for everyone and yet we allow people to starve, we wage wars, we deny the very existence of God and we dismiss love as nothing more than a shot of oxytocin. It’s enough to make you despair for all of humankind. How can we possibly be so bloody stupid? Maybe instead of demanding to know why God allows such suffering, we should be asking ourselves why we do.
Did we ever really leave paradise, Zande, or are we all still here, trapped in a prison of our own making?
One more thing Zande, something I find fascinating. With a spooky kind of synchronicity, I’ve noticed that all of those who seem to believe in this alleged omnimalovolent God (Christians included) are often big fans of the animal rescues, donating all proceeds there. I didn’t understand why at first and then it clicked. When we perceive our own Creator as malevolent and unmerciful, we really just perceive our own selves and others that way. We’re so busy creating Him in our own image, we cannot even see it. subconsciously we begin to empathize far more with the animals then we do with our own kind.
Dog spelled backwards is God, Zande. That is no accident. There are no coincidences. Dogs are like God’s last-ditch effort to help us believe in love. Anyone who can look into those puppy dog eyes and tell me that the Creator of the universe lacks benevolence towards us, is simply deceiving himself.
“In His image,” Zande, not in our own. Those are profound words with far-reaching implications. To know Him and to love Him, is to know and love our own selves, flaws and all.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Thanks Insanity, but I wasn’t asking you to “review” it, just read it.
As it stands, you have put done 864 words and haven’t even put a minor scratch on the thesis. That thesis being:
I’d be happy to hear your rebuttal just as soon as you can organise a coherent one….
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“Is this not, after all, the most credible, excuse-free explanation for the degenerate nature of things before us?”
The most credible, indeed, the ONLY rational explanation an atheist can possibly give for the alleged degenerate nature of things before us, is the deeply flawed and malevolent behavior of human beings.
I however, happen to believe in not only the deeply flawed and malevolent behavior of humans, but also in an enemy that walks this earth attempting to separate us from the love of God.
And in spite of those forces constantly working against us, the world is really not quite the degenerate place you seem to perceive it to be.
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No, you see Insanity, you’ve gotten yourself all confused again. The problem is, you just don’t know what you’re replying to. You don’t understand the first motions of what is actually being discussed.
Let me put it this way: without need for an alibi, scapegoat, hastily arranged apology, or laboured advocacy Malevolence explains this world. Where the Christian theologian is forced to rescue an incompetent spirit who has, for one imaginative reason or another, lost total control of his creation, the gospel of the malevolent hand stands unchaste, uncontaminated, and inviolable. As an explanation for the world that has been, is, and will be, malevolence is complete. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are made clear without a cover story or inventive pretext
Now, believe me, I can sympathise with your confusion on this matter, Insanity. It’s enormously uncomfortable. It appears, though, that you can’t get over the first mental hurdle: comprehending how and why a universe would be structured in such a vile way.
The first thing you must understand is that this is not a question of aesthetics, Insanity, rather nutrition. You can’t judge what the Creator finds most stimulating, arousing, entertaining, or nourishing…. But the question still remains:
Why does The Owner of All Infernal Names consume suffering? Why does the omnipotent, omnipresent source of all things feast on sorrow and misery and confusion and anxiety and pain, and not love, compassion, goodness or kindness? Why create a universe that works instinctively towards greater expressions of mayhem and danger if a universe could be created that was driven towards forever expanding paradigms of peace and trusted security?
It is a conspicuous and pressing question, yet well might you ask: Why does man consume oxygen? To cyanobacteria it would appear a filthy, grotesque, and unquestionably revolting diet. How else, after all, but with certain repulsion would one organism describe the dietary practices of another organism that consumes the first organism’s waste: its faeces?
You, Insanity, are inhaling faeces, but does this change your appreciation of oxygen?
Understand this, and you will start on your journey toward understanding the Creator of this universe: The Owner of All Infernal Names
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Two points here:
1. Men are designed to change things. When they see something that doesn’t work, they want to change it. Religion doesn’t work perfectly. So change it. Unfortunately, the easiest way to change something is to break it. That is the lazy way out, rather than to sort through the detritus and mess, separate the wheat from the chaff, and move forward while preserving what is good.
In other words, the rhetorical construct presented by Zande in his post is simply an act of intellectual bomb-throwing. I have little sympathy for such.
2. The proposition that God is responsible for evil is an artifact of escalatory monotheism, which is another artifact of moral laziness. If you don’t believe in God, you should be hesitant to draw upon that principle. In fact, the goodness of God is not a reflection of his omnipotence (we do have free will), but rather of the construction of a reality that is designed to separate good from evil personalities and provide healing for the wounded. I’ve proposed this as a defensible thesis: this reality is a hospital of the soul constructed for those that survived a conflict in the realm of the angels.
I suggest that you read my book, The Soul Comes First, and then, as Insanity says, go out and enjoy a sunset, or hug a kitten.
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Hi Brain
I’m afraid to say, but you, too, are completely off the rails here. Nowhere do i claim The Omnimalevolent Creator is “responsible” for evil.
It’s far more devious than such a juvenile appraisal. It’s clear you don’t understand what true evil would actually look like, how it would behave. I can understand your confusion, but it doesn’t excuse your incorrectness.
Read the book and you’ll understand the thesis.
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John, John, John. Your comments on something about which you seem to have so little comprehension remind me of the kind-hearted fellow who taught a class of young ladies how it might feel and what could physically happen to their bodies, if or when they went through childbirth. You obviously believe you mean well.
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Hi 49er
I’m afraid “meaning well” has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject at hand. I will grant you that “meaning well” does, however, apply to general Christian apologetics in its attempts to mask the contradictions that exist between that particular religions’ theology and reality. You are, therefore, erroneously projecting your own weaknesses and inadequacies onto a subject you clearly don’t understand. Not yet, at least. But as I have said above, this is fine. I can understand and sympathise with the confusion you’re feeling right now.
Now, if you have an actual question concerning the thesis then by all means ask it. I’ll be happy to engage.
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It is extremely gracious for Zande to “understand and sympathize with the confusion” he mistakenly projects I feel right now. Some might consider that by itself, his own would likely overwhelm a lesser man. And yet he struggles through.
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You’re welcome. I do appreciate the difficulty that exists in approaching this subject with a level of intellectual integrity. Impartiality is the key, so if you’d like to present a coherent counterargument I’d be thrilled to address it.
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John,
How is it you came to be an authority on what true evil looks like and how it behaves?
Asking for a friend.
James
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Hi James
Fabulous question! Well done. I might well ask you, though, how have you—or any of your apologist friends—become “experts” on a supposedly benevolent Creator? You invent creative theodicies to excuse your concept of this God, but are any of these propositions genuinely rooted in reality, or are they simply the imaginings of people who want to believe something, and these stories—these excuses—help satisfy that particular emotional need?
My thesis does not require any imaginative theodicy. It requires no inventive alibi or pretext. My thesis does not have to manufacture “excuses” to explain the world that is, as opposed to your position of explaining the world that is not.
Now, what does true evil look like, and how do I know? You’ll have to read the book to fully understand, but let me just say, simple deductive reasoning in resolving the Problem of Good. The likes of Max Andrews would have his simplistically-minded audiences believe maximum evil would be maximally selfish, but this represents a gross misunderstanding of how evil would conduct itself. By surveying the world, by studying the design the Creator has left, one comes to see that true evil—conscious, calculating evil—does not seek to destroy life, but rather encourage it. This is observable, it is demonstrable, it is rationally and logically factual and requires no excuse… and that’s what makes it so very uncomfortable.
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John,
I have to say that all you’ve done here is say I’m wrong with condescending philosophy that makes no point.
Let me ask you this.
God isn’t evil because He kills and destroys life but because He created it and encourages it to live in a world of maximum suffering? Is that right?
If that’s what you believe then how do you explain the billions of God’s creature who suffer very little? If God were maximally evil, wouldn’t there be much more suffering?
Using this logic would parents be considered evil if they bring a life into such an evil world? Would they be more evil than a murderer? If they had a baby and let it die by simply letting it starve to death would that be better than providing food that encourages the baby to live?
Last night I trapped a fox in my yard. I know you’ll appreciate this as someone who rescues animals. What is my least evil course of action here? I could shoot it so it doesn’t suffer. I could drive it off in the woods and let it go hoping it live. Are you saying shooting it is the way to go here?
And, saying what you’ve written is academic and everyone who doesn’t understand just isn’t smart enough over and over adds no value to your work.
What might however, is peer review which, based on what you’ve told me in the past, you’re a pretty big fan of. I know it’s a book, not scientific research by a credentialed philosopher but do you have plans to have any philosopher, theologian, psychologist…read it? I would be interested in knowing what someone who doesn’t consume feces has to say.
James
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Hi James
Yes, the work is with Dr Stephen Law (Oxford) and his initial reaction has been fantastic, and a paper constructed from one of the chapters is with Columbia University’s Journal of Philosophy, and Cambridge’s Religious Studies journal. I have also offered Liberty University’s Dr’s Martin and Habermas the opportunity to present a formal rebuttal, and the philosophy/theology department at Aalborg University also has the work, and I’ve been promised a response.
That’s just the start.
Now, although I appreciate your efforts, you’re trying to attempt to engage a subject here you simply are not understanding. That’s not a criticism, just a fact. You’re coming at this from completely and entirely the wrong angle… an angle constructed from your Christian perspective. The Creator exists. Yes! But I am not, and never was, talking about your god. I am not saying your god is evil. Your god does not exist. It was only was only ever a secondary invention, a grinning wicker man thrown together in antiquity and stood in place as a chimerical response to a world whose everyday works betray the fantasy in every possible way. Please, get that into your head. We are discussing here the Creator; a nameless being who cherished His anonymity and may be simply referred to as The Owner of All Infernal Names.
This is not the entity human fictions have ever envisaged. This being does not share His Creation with any other comparable spirit, and does not seek to be worshipped.
All your questions regarding the existence of good (moral and natural) are, however, addressed in The Problem of Good chapter, and to that I would welcome a formal rebuttal. To get to that point you will, however, have to read the complete work.
It’s encouraging, though, that you’re asking the right questions. Unlike Insanity, you’re at least orientating yourself towards the subject. I commend you for that.
That said, let me at least say that while the urge of the harried and perhaps careless observer is certainly to assume that a maximally debased being—an entity who stands as a living contradiction to all things a limited terrestrial mind might consider wellborn—would be wholly and hopelessly dedicated to wild brutality and the swift delivery of ruin across His creation, the assumption ignores the self-evident fact that a world driven only by impetuous brutality and scorched earth protocols would resemble more a raging, superheated, short-lived bonfire than a secure, creative, and ultimately profitable marketplace desired by a Creator who seeks to maximise His pleasure over time.
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John,
Apologies up front, I don’t like to get wordy.
What you basically just said was “I’m right and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong”, right?
If Dr. Habemas does indeed write a review will your thank you letter to him say something like this?
“I appreciate your time sir but, coming from a Christian perspective, Im affraid you can’t possibly understand.”
Can’t imagine it would be anything other.
Yes John, you aren’t saying our God is evil because you don’t believe He exists. What you are saying however is that the world is evil so if God did create it He must be evil too.
James
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Hi James
I’m sorry, but you’ve completely lost me here. Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote. I’m inviting formal rebuttals, and I will address the points raised as they are presented. That’s how this is typically done. The thesis is presented and it is countered in a rational and coherent and adult manner. That is to say, if it can indeed be countered in a rational and coherent and adult manner… something I have not seen yet. What I have seen is kneejerk emotional outbursts that haven’t even begun to even approach the actual subject matter presented.
So, if you’re capable of it, I’d welcome a formal rebuttal from you, or anyone, and you have my word I will address these responses with full attention to detail and civility.
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Hi John,
Sorry, I don’t believe you. I could spend a week dissecting this and write a lengthy rebuttal. All you will say in return is “sorry James, although In think you’re trying, you simply don’t get it I’m afraid. ”
James
As for my fox dilemma. It has been terrorizing neighborhood house pets so letting it go would ensure the pets themselves and the families who own them suffer. So, .22 or shotgun? One is highly effective but only if it remains still enough to get a good head shot. The other works every time but it’s incredibly messy. I could, I guess, drive it off into the woods and let it go but wouldn’t encouraging it to live be evil?
Then again, the world according to you is a horrible and evil place of pitiless indifference so, does it really even objectively matter? Just trying to applyAnd your version of how the world works to every day life, not easy.
Jamss
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James, don’t give up so easily. You were on the right track earlier in raising the Problem of Good. That showed me you can, at the very least, approach this subject with some level of intellectual integrity, and perhaps nuance.
Now, I appreciate this is a difficult subject. I concede this point and explain it in the chapter, The State of the Argument. Why though, remarked Nietzsche, should we expect the truth to be comfortable? Has there ever been a valid reason? Has there ever been some rational, intellectual, authentic and defendable justification to expect a pleasant answer beyond those most ancient and self-directed cravings for care, affection, protection and, ultimately, some manner of deliverance from the pain and uncertainty of existence?
Truth is truth, James. You can either face it, or you will spend your life running from it. You will, though, never escape it.
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John,
I like Nietzsche but would use his words to ask you why you don’t believe in Christianity? Is the unpleasantness of it all too hard to bare?
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James, avoiding the subject won’t make it go away.
To repeat myself once again: No one is talking about Christianity. There is a chapter of religious belief in the book, yes, but it addresses the phenomena of belief and how it beautifully serves our Omnimalevoent Creator, but I don’t talk about any particular belief system… and certainly not Christianity.
Again, this is a standalone thesis. The Creator exists. His truth is self-evident.
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Disagree John, ignoring this will indeed make it go away.
James
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Then you’ve conceded you’re not interested in the Truth. This is not surprising, although it is disappointing. I thought you had an intellectual backbone, James. I thought you figured your faith was “rational.” Obviously, I was mistaken.
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I’m conceding that I’m not interested in what you claim to be truth.
Are you claiming that your book answers age old philosophical questions with absolute truths that cannot be rejected?
Seems to be a pretty bold claim and not one worth giving more attention than I already have.
Good luck with the book John I’m betting it proves nothing.
James
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Did I say the thesis could not be rejected? Quite on the contrary, I have invited a formal, coherent, adult rebuttal. What I have said is that it is a very, very strong thesis and can only be approached with an equally strong intellectual disposition.
Regretfully, no one here seems capable of that, or brave enough to even attempt it.
Pity.
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Yes John, that’s pretty much exactly what you said 🙂
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I’m done here John.
Think of me as a fool if you’d like, it’s far from the worst thing I’ll be called today.
Enjoy the rest of your day 🙂
James
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hey john-
;As I said earlier, the word for the day: clever. PR firms envy such labor.
Surely you allege that nobody could address your defense without first reading your ‘book.’ Yet you laid your hand bare in your mindless rendering of the kindergarten ‘evil’ example, then linking your misunderstanding of the nature of evil as being the pure fault of a Creator.
Personally, you have left massive footprints with your commenting here, on your own blog, and on the blogs of others, that are proof positive that in your book, ‘THERE WILL BE NOTHING NEW,USEFUL, OR ORIGINAL,’ as coming from the pen of man that casts aspersion on the true God, which then makes it unnecessary for one to further spend his time rebutting the obvious.
Bravo. You have created God in your image; many do so, but not many are foolish enough to boast of the attempt. You can’t even begin to speak of a Creator, without referencing the word of God. Indeed, the wrath of man always sings the praises of God, even if through a donkey.
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I don’t consider you a fool, James.
I was hoping, though, that you would have the intellectual dexterity to engage this subject. Regretfully, you are admitting you don’t. But that’s OK. I can sympathise with your position.
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If I might add, what you have to bear in mind is that I am not, and never was, talking about any God you might recognise. This is a standalone thesis, and must be approached that way. Again, I am not, and never was, saying “your” god is evil. That concept is meaningless here.
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Zande:
I was responding to the fragment that you posted. Do you have a blog? I’d be happy to discuss further in a forum where you are able to frame ideas in complete form.
As for the book: I side with my friend here. I don’t need ideas to properly understand God. I derive great strength from that source, and am privileged and trusted to participate in a large and enormously creative reality. That is the true test of moral authority: not to declare a truth, but to create constructive relationships with others – including personalities that inhabit forms that science tells us are “inanimate.”
Brian
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Hi Brian,
Yes, you did respond to a fragment you saw, and predictably blundered terribly in your response. Again, I can understand your natural aversion to even approach this subject with any intellectual honesty. I genuinely mean this. It is a difficult and enormously uncomfortable subject, but given your rather rash emotional outburst I suspect you do not possess the necessary faculties to even approach the subject with a truly impartial, intellectual eye. I might, however, be mistaken. To understand the thesis you’ll have to read the book, although I’d be happy to answer any preliminary questions you have on the subject.
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“an enemy that walks this earth attempting to separate us from the love of God.” Darth Vader?
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You express some beautiful thoughts here about God and spirituality. I agree with you about dogs.
I have also nominated you to take the Love/Hate Challenge! Please visit this post if you’d like to participate: http://luckyottershaven.com/2015/06/08/the-lovehate-challenge/
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Wow.
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OK, I’m already sensing the tempo of your reply, here. Just waiting for the melodic lines to clear up and unscramble a bit, and I’m gonna sing this modern psalm Sunday next.
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“Let me put it this way: without need for an alibi, scapegoat, hastily arranged apology, or laboured advocacy, Malevolence explains this world.” -Zande
Something I find fascinating, my previous post about Mr Beale and this one both hinge on the same point. Beale, who wrote the “Irrational Atheist,” which should probably be called the “Irrational Christian,” shares Zande’s belief, malevolence explains this world. Beale once, in the process of describing the god of this world (satan) actually gave a very apt and nearly amusing description of his very own self. Intelligent, malevolent, seeking to kill, steal, and destroy…..he then proceeded to attempt to “destroy” a couple of people, their faith, their pride, their insistence that there was any good in this world. Yes, Beale the alleged Christian did this.
Zande has a similar perspective, malevolence explains this world. As kindly and as gently as I can possibly muster, no, male pride explains both Zande and Beale’s perceptions of a malevolent world, and two thirds of the suffering to be found in said world. You are both so consumed with pride and ego, you actually project your own perceptions of yourselves onto the world around you, rendering you unable to actually see the rhythm and the synchronicity of it all, the beauty that has been cast at your feet.
God has now been re-created in your own image, a God Zande has decided to reject due to His perceived malevolence and a malevolent perception of God, Beale has decided to embrace. They both now seek confirmation bias of their own bias and are driven to try and destroy what they perceive to be “believers.” Believers in what? Believers in anything that challenges their own perceptions that they live in a malevolent world.
So what is the payoff in believing the world is malevolent and only you are big and bad enough to fully perceive the harsh reality of the world around you? Well, it’s a huge bliss hit to your own ego, and it helps to keep you walled off and invulnerable to love. A malevolent world asks nothing of you, demands nothing of you, and protects you from ever having to ” feel.”
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Insanity, I’m sorry to say this, and I do not mean to offend you, but you just keep demonstrating your utter confusion here. Nothing in my thesis concerns Christianity. Please stop trying to think your particular Middle Eastern religion is special and of interest. It’s not. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the thesis.
These nonsensical rambles just make you look silly as you are not addressing the actual subject. You see, you don’t even understand what Creator I am talking about. You are coming at this from your very shallow Christian perspective, and that is fundamentally in error. Your definitions are being drawn from fantastic human fictions, not fact. Your confusion is, though, understandable. Anticipating this confusion, this error in thinking and definition, I addressed this very subject early in the book, writing:
Some have named a lesser species of this being the Devil, others The Deceiver, Ahriman, Abaddon, Mara, Baphomet, Apollyon, Iblis, Beast, Angra Mainyu, Yama, Moloch, The Father of Lies, The Author of Sin, Druj, Samnu, Mammon, and The Great Spoiler, yet these characters of human literature and tradition do not begin to approach the nature and scope of this entity who may be identified as simply, The Owner of All Infernal Names: a being who does not share His creation with any other comparable spirit, does not seek to be known to or worshipped by that which He has created (or has allowed to be created), and whose greatest proof of existence is that there is no conspicuous proof of His existence—just teleological birthmarks that can be isolated and examined as testimony—for He understands that the trinkets of His greatest amusement, arousal and nutritional satisfaction must be blind to the nature of the world they inhabit so they may act freely, and suffer genuinely.
If you can begin to grasp this then you might start making some sense.
And yes, when you can organise a coherent rebuttal I’
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(allow me to finish that thought…)
And yes, when you can organise a coherent rebuttal, I’d be very interested to hear it.
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Wow, that’s fairly amazing. insanity, I have to side with JZ here. You don’t appear to know what you’re talking about, much like someone beating the ground around the target with a bow.
“That is why we seldom get to catch a glimpse of Him in this world, Zande. He’d blow your hard drive. There are simply not enough little neuronal connections to try to relate the experience to. Those who have caught a glimpse of His shadow have simply fallen on their face.”
Moses did just fine staring at YHWH’s arse. Paul of Tarsus did ok as did a lot of other people. Tell you what, since you know the mind of your god, the omnipotent creator of all existence who could present his omnipotent self in such a way as to not make us explode… go on and ask him to come on down and share a beer with me and have a conversation. I’m sure where your attempts fail he’ll be able to convince me with the kind of ease that makes angering him seem completely stupid. Seriously, get him on down here since you’re so tight with him. I’ll even buy the beer unless he’s desperate to show me that party trick with some tap water. Why would he do that? Well, I’m fairly sure you’ll tell me that he wouldn’t do that, but then you know the mind of your god. Tonight when you pray, ask your god why he won’t come drink beers with me and talk me through the whole thing.
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90 elders also went up the mountain to “see” Yhwh, so the story goes. Apologists love to ignore this rather awkward entry.
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Your thesis being: The world is an evil place, God created it, therfore God is evil.
Where’d I go wrong here John?
Seems like the book argues a false premise you state as fact.
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A little off, James. The world is structured to increase suffering. Your definition of evil is also mistaken. Allow me to repeat what i said to Insanity above:
Why does man consume oxygen? To cyanobacteria it would appear a filthy, grotesque, and unquestionably revolting diet. How else, after all, but with certain repulsion would one organism describe the dietary practices of another organism that consumes the first organism’s waste: its faeces?
You, James, are consuming faeces, but does this change your appreciation of oxygen?
Now, what makes you say it is a false premise? That sounds like an opinion, which you’re entitled to, but its meaningless unless you can substantiate it.
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John, it seems you are substituting a ‘benevolent god’ with a cruel one. Is that right? If so, why make the substitution at all? Why not simply acknowledge that carbon-based life on this planet is brutish and that entropy rules?
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Hi Mildly
Because its an exercise in teleology and natural theology.
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IB, I love your posts but sometimes I’m scared to read the comments sections knowing exactly what I’ll find. I would rather be a dumb, naive Christian any day if it gives me love and compassion than some of the people here with their condescension and disdain dripping from every word. All because it’s something they just don’t understand. I imagine it’s frustrating to be of superior intelligence and not be able to understand something that so many people get, but the comments on here are sometimes so inexcusable. I pray I’m never smart enough to be an atheist, I just don’t want to treat people like that. And I know someone will say that Christians are really the horrible mean ones, but I’m not responsible for them, I’m responsible for me and although I’m well-educated, I find no excuse for talking down to people in the way people talk to you. You’re delightful IB, keep fighting the good fight.
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Reblogged this on The Window Philosopher and commented:
IB has done it again.
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Please John, I need just a tad more clarification here, OK?
1. You say that the Christian God is an incompetent spirit, which is a false premise.
2. You say God needs labored advocacy by apologists to make Him out to be something other than an incompetent spirt.
3. You write a book that is basically labored advocacy to support your false premise.
See the irony here?
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Again with the “false premise.”
James, as much as you’d like to think otherwise, opinions are meaningless in academia. Substantiate your claim. Why is it a false premise?
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And what qualifies your book as academia John?
Is it a peer reviewed paper? Are you a credentialed academian who has conducted years of scientific study, evaluation, experiments?
Is it a textbook?
Or is it something some guy just wrote because he has the ability to form complete sentences? I could right a book John, what one factor would immediately disqualify it as academic?
James
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Wow, I’m so glad I decided to check my WP Reader this evening! The post was great of course but the comments extremely good fun too, bravo to all. I have to say John, I’m siding with the others here on saying your thesis is lacking. Because bad things happen this proves God not only causes them but requires this evilness for sustainment? Sorry, I guess I’m too dumb to grasp your point there.
God is about love and freedom. In possibly what his greatest gift to us he gave us both by allowing us to choose whether to follow Him or not. Unfortunately this also means many will do evil, some horribly so, but it can only be this way.
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Jz sez:
………….and it explains those things no Christian theologian has been able to explain in 2,000 years of thinking up creative excuses… not least among them, why the Creator is invisible and so clearly cherishes His anonymity………..
Clever marketing here john; you know insanitybytes22 will not fall for the stale bread you offer, but you hope others will. She is far more gracious than I in giving you your coveted 15 minutes.
‘WHY the Creator is invisible……………’ That’s too bad to go through life with such poor eyesight, for even blind people see the hand of the Creator. Himself and His works ARE CLEARLY seen, so that all men (incl. you) are without EXCUSE. (hint: the host here wrote something to this effect) But some people are more adept in covering their suppression.
‘No Christian theologian had been able to explain in 2,000 years……………….’ Please. Laughter or pity…………..it probably would not be a good idea to waste good pity.
(Supposed to go here; plz zap other one, sorry and tkx)
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Ahh, yes stale bread. Now why would anyone chose stale bread over that fresh warm loaf with the crusty outside and the soft middle? I mean come on, is there anything better than freshly baked bread? 😉
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May I return your observation ib22 with a little more daylight…………………..
As the ‘best wine’ was served last in Cana, we usually do not hear of the ‘quality’ of the bread to feed the thousands………..
This was ‘more than bread,’ certainly not leftovers as in ‘giving as the world gives;’
But of course, as the Bread of life always gives above measure and perfectly 😉
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Insanity, are you going to address my comments?
You wrote this post on me and my book, so running from me (and my book) now looks somewhat ridiculous.
I hope you can rise to the occasion….
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I’m not running, John. Many have addressed your comments and given great answers. I am rather helpless here, in light of the fact that you seem dedicated to the idea of a malevolent universe. I do not see malevolence at all, I see synchronicity, rhythm, benevolence, great beauty and love. The whole world is singing to us. I cannot show you what you do not wish to see.
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I’m afraid to say, you are running, Insanity. I have responded to your comments and you are ignoring them. Odd behaviour, I think you’d agree, as you wrote this post and invited me to address it.
To date, you haven’t engaged the subject at all, so I’m utterly baffled what you were even thinking in inviting me over.
Can you construct a coherent argument, or are you simply going to continue ignoring the thesis and pretend I’m talking about “your” god?
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“Can you construct a coherent argument….”
All in good humor here, Zande, but I think God finds our “coherent arguments” rather amusing. At least, I hope He is amused. The truth of the matter is that we are not even big and bad enough to make a coherent argument, let alone to recognize one when we see it. What is coherence? It is nothing more then a subjective opinion, a personal judgment based on our own biases. We can no more “reason” away God then we can reason away our own existence. We certainly do try though, don’t we? That is the question that really reveals the truth, why do we try so hard to erase something so beautiful, so loving?
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Again, baffled as to why you would write a whole post on me and my book then refuse to actually engage it.
Very strange behaviour, Insanity. Why even bother going to such an effort if you had no intention of rising to the challenge of engaging the subject?
And to repeat: no one is talking about your god here. Your god requires excuses, my thesis does not.
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I am most curious about Zande
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Sorry I’m taking up so much space here IB. This is a conversation I did not plan on having.
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It’s all good, you can converse all you like.
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The best thing you could have done for me IB is to shut this down allowing me to bow out and save face against someone who is clearly (just ask him) my intellectual superior 😉
Regardless, this won’t last long. I don’t have much tolerance for overly wordy philosophy that thinks too highly of itself yet says nothing.
James 🙂
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I have truly accepted and embraced the idea that it is far better to be stupid with the Holy Spirit, indeed “delusional and crazy” with Him, then it is to be clinging so fiercely and pridefully to our own intelligence and perceived sanity 😉
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I agree completely. Besides, if I can make it a whole day online and “stupid” is the worst thing I’m called, I’d count that as a win. 🙂
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Insanity
Again, you wrote this post on me and my book.
Why are you now running away from the subject, and me?
This is a public forum, and people are watching you…
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Without firsthand experiential knowledge, especially when that understanding involves trust of something or someone not yet encountered, and impacts how one would conduct themselves in life based upon a love and justice, mercy and grace quite unfamiliar in its depths than comes natural to the human heart, I understand the quandary. I understand how a life of faith and belief in an unseen God seems more foolish than sane. Yet here the fool I write…
This God that IB writes about, defends and pleads for has a love whose patience perseveres under suffering, bravely enduring misfortune and trouble, refusing to retaliate even when it could. It is a love that defers anger when anger would be justified, does not envy or boast but seems able to subdue that kind of pride that separates people more than unite them, nor does it gratify itself at the damage of others. It is a love that stoops to serve even if that means washing the feet of an enemy. it is a love that keeps no tally of all the wrong done against it, takes no delight in the evil that is all around. It is a love that pleads forgiveness over hatred, mercy over revenge. This love, once accepted, cannot fail nor change its mind and remove itself. This love does not die nor is it fickle. It is a love that even among the waste and chaos of human history, even under the rules and regulations we humans have devised to justify and punish and make right from wrong, laws that we ourselves could talk about and teach yet not do, this love took the high road of mercy and came in Person to help us out. The ultimate rescue mission, (supposing we needed rescuing).
Suppose God is real, even in His invisible nature, and has an understanding of our natures that we understand only partially. I find it incredibly difficult to trust in anything that my senses cannot grab some hold on. Suppose God understood this about us so He made an appearance on this earth in the form of a Man, His Son, one and only Son. Supposing God, knowing end from beginning, also understood the way His Son would be treated by us, yet suppose He loved us all enough to do this act of mercy anyway. Face to face, not necessarily to share a beer, but there were meals and feasting and wine. Supposing He, God the Father of the beloved Son, sent His Son here with the sole purpose, one motivated by a love and mercy still wed to justice and “doing the right thing.”
I have given birth to one child. She and I have encountered those who have profoundly impacted our lives with a love, mercy and forgiveness that really did transform us and our lives. But we have also had to deal with some folks so fueled by hatred and all that goes with a heart so calloused, who treated their fellow humans in ways inhumane, rather nasty stuff. I’ve never had to deal with a bomb threats in a kindergarten classroom, but have seen lives detonated and the horrific fallout. If I were given the opportunity to have those individuals rescued from themselves and the hatred which rules them, who destroyed more than they healed, hated more than they loved, took more than gave, but to do so involved sacrificing my only daughter in order that they may be transformed into new creatures, I don’t think I would be up for the task, especially if I had knowledge that prior to her death she would be tortured, ridiculed, mocked and abandoned by her closest family and friends. Yet that is what we followers of Jesus believe that God has done: the ultimate rescue mission.
I’ve met IB and can attest that she is not only an incredible loving individual, but is loved rather extravagantly by the God we both believe in. It’s dreadfully hard to love someone who will not return our love and not have the edges of the heart harden, but somehow this God of ours is able to do so. How He remains steadfast in His love of us whether we reciprocate or not I am unable to articulate in any reasonable way. If the perspective on life were simply the here and now without a forever that never ended, the perspective is a gloomy one. Yet when seen from a kind of a spiritual satellite viewpoint, the world, its past, present and future looks quite different.
As we enter this world with not much but a naked body similar do we leave it. I’ve spent time alongside many a soul as they made that transition from life into the stillness of death. It is an ending, an absence, a void of a presence of that soul invisible yet oddly tangible. An unseen presence with more reality than I ever understood until it was not there. Even if that person was someone I whose life I was not part of until their last few hours here, when I have walked into those rooms when their heart stopped pulsing I could feel the absence of their soul even though their body gave clear evidence they remained behind.
Suppose God is real as is the Son He sent on our behalf. Suppose His love is one we have no reference points to compare to. Suppose there is a whole lot more to our present and past that involves a future that has no end, no death, no last breath. Suppose that one day this God will reveal Himself to us all, but in the meantime remains rather stubborn in a love which aims to reconcile us all to Him. Suppose that our definition of justice, harm, good and love has a deeper definition that we realize?
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Why does your concept of a god chose to be concealed, hidden, invisible?
To answer this you must construct inventive excuses.
The gospel of the Malevolent Creator requires no excuses to explain this fact.
The Creator exits. Yes. His concealment can be explained in a rational and coherent manner.
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I’ve never hear this theory before IB. In fact omnimalevolence is a word I had never seen. What a delightful concept. It does have to exist, you know. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of it or thought of it before. Given that nothing existed before God created the universe, then it stands to reason that us and all around us are literally made out if God. That being so, we are obviously not God in the sense of our perspective. Our universe is , then, a “dis-“integrated version of God. We have choice and that means we have to be given both sides of existence – that which leads to towards God and that which leads away from God. If we bundle up all that leads towards God, then that is Christ (kindness, caring, love, inclusiveness, divergence, etc) . Which leaves all that which leads away from God – which I have never seen categorized or consolidated before today. Do notice that the “qualities” that I enumerated, are all perspectives and higher level concepts, not things – not the physical world. The physical world is internally consistent and complete within either perspective. Think of our choice as a wind that blows one way or another across existence – a sort of higher level that touches all things. I choose the wind that blows towards God, but it is equally complete to choose the wind that blows away from God – or as your author so eloquently put it – omnimalevolence.
That being said the belief in Christ nicely explains omnimalevolence – that which is not of Christ. However omnimalevolence does not explain Christ. Consequently it is obvious which perspective is most complete an hence real – the one that explains it all = Christ.
Very thought provoking IB. Thank You.
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IB, I’ve learned that Mr. Zande doesn’t respond to rationality, but I still think there’s a learning opportunity for you if you approach him in an abjectly-rational way. Some form of “prime mover” can be proven through verifiable evidence alone, without any hint of faith.
Your experience with faith is invaluable, but for someone like John, what he wants is to mock faith. In a sense–just as you say to him about trying to experience Christ directly–you’re revealing too much for him to process, and it gives him an overload that he thrives upon. He consistently seeks out people like you, who talk about faith, and shies from people like me, who talk about observable material evidence (things that he can check up on, using the fossil record, as opposed to things that he can’t check up on, like an internal sense of goodness and decency).
I’d like to see him confronted with a world full of Christians who were willing to speak to him in his language of matter organization, rather than dazzling him with incomprehensible lights of faith. Enough of that ministering, and he might eventually learn to understand faith. As it is, you’re quoting Jesus to him in a language he hasn’t yet learned.
Here’s an old example of a post that resulted from a discussion with John and several of his followers, to which John was too afraid to respond: Abscesses of Note: Fins, Stumps, and the Pressure of Light.
❤
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Higharka, so very good to see you!
So, beyond your rambling monologue here, can you actually present a coherent counter-argument to my thesis?
So much bluster, but no content.
I look forward to your response.
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Hey buddy, nice to see you. 🙂 Let’s be sure this one understands your thesis. What I took away from your work was, “There is suffering, therefore God is evil.” Is that correct?
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No. Not even close.
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This one must’ve misread the following, then:
“[T]his world was brought into existence by a perfectly wicked, malevolent Creator; a maximally powerful being whose nutritional, emotional and entertainment needs are satisfied best by the suffering which pervades all of Creation…”
Does the book explain that the above quote is satire and/or teaser? A few years ago, I finished the second book in a series about some people who’d drawn that conclusion (that abundant suffering exists, therefore God is evil), and they rationalized it using the same arguments you just did. Perhaps I’ve wrongly conflated the two. Would you be so kind as to let me know what your thesis actually is?
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Apologies, allow me to correct myself. You are in part correct to assume the thesis involves the existence suffering to be a starting point to the conclusion: a maximally wicked Creator. The treatise though (an introductory treatise, the work is only 47,000 words as I went out of my way to honour our Great Lord Brevity) reveals a perversely more indifferent arrangement than any simple equation might hint at.
Let me clarify this by saying that a tremendous confusion exists in human being’s trying to define evil. Their notions are drawn from misplaced concepts of how maximal evil would behave, how it would conduct itself, and what its primary motivations would be. Principle perhaps among these profoundly dizzying discrepancies is that The Owner of All Infernal Names is not primarily concerned with heedless brutality, wanton destruction, or the swift delivery of death and ruin across His creation. I deal with this in addressing The Problem of Good, but to paraphrase, His is clearly a passionately pragmatic approach to Creation where long-term nutritional needs outweigh delightful, but short-lived sugar-rushes.
That being said, to the common observer, the sceptic whose ideas of evil have been shaped by extraordinary human fictions, this thought stream runs contrary to all intuition. Indeed, the very notion of restraint, of self-control, is an affront to all human inclinations as to how untethered, perfectly free, maximum evil should behave. Maximum evil must surely be maximally selfish, and such a gluttonous, mercenary disposition should override all notions of patience, moderation, and self-discipline. Such qualities are not equated with evil. Not in human tradition, and challenging that folklore insults every deeply held pedestrian estimate of what evil is.
In essence though, true evil—conscious, calculating evil—does not seek to destroy life, but rather encourage it. True evil—malicious in every action—cheers life on. True evil—defiled in every pursuit—is not, as Max Andrews proposes, maximally selfish, rather full of restraint and accommodating in every way to the needs of men, mice, mushrooms, and microbes. True evil—debased in every motion—promotes, defends, and even admires life in its struggle to persist and self-adorn. True evil—known only to itself—urges life to grow more complex, more bold, more adventurous and more expressive, for only then is it at its most vulnerable, and when it is at its most vulnerable it is pregnant with possibility.
Higharka, a ship, after all, must be first floated and launched before it can be drowned and sunk.
You see, the chief purpose of Creation is not misery alone, rather the accretion of suffering through the positive diversification of life and culture and technology over time, and for that to be realised then Creation must be seeded with the capacity to birth and nourish what man and beast alike call “goods,” be they moral or natural goods. For the perversely minded, simply killing the trinkets of your greatest amusement and nutritional satisfaction produces at best only temporary elation, a dazzling sensation that is over in a flash, but to permit your prey to fear calamity and to live through catastrophes large and small, to hope and to weep and to lament, to feel anguish over things lost, to regret things found, and to suffer with physical discomfort, emotional injuries and psychological lesions is the wellhead of enduring pleasure. Suffering, therefore, is not merely the abrupt delivery of violence and death. Its greatest and most valuable expression is in dashed hopes, ruined dreams, perennial pain, torment, confusion, misunderstanding, prolonged anxiety, recovery, repair, exhaustion, and, eventually, capitulation in a drama where warm survivors, not cold victims, are more valuable to the Omnimalevolent Creator.
Higharka, I know you have the intellectual nuances to engage this subject. For this reason, I would enjoy reading any formal rebuttal you could present. That dialogue would be thoroughly entertaining, and I suspect you might, just perhaps, have the capacity to genuinely challenge parts of the thesis. I doubt you can take down the body of the work, it’s quite solid, but you might be able to force a refinement of certain aspects of the argument.
I look forward to it.
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Your thesis gives this one vindication, because it almost sounds like you’re coming around on the idea of real (e.g., non-Scientistic) evolution. You recognize the universal trend toward increasing complexity–hurrah!
Here are some things you’ll need to deal with, though:
1) The mercantilist evolutionists. if your maximally evil God exists, then His coordination of the world toward increasingly refined pain harvest (“harvest” was one of the terms I’d used elsewhere) contradicts the randomized material evolution that underscores most modern nation-states. So obviously, you have to counter those people. E.g., how does the omnimalevolent God prevent random mutations from producing happiness?
2) Prehuman history. Your omnimalevolent God apparently took billions of years to establish lifeforms which had the capability of suffering. In return, all He’s gotten (so far) is, what–a few hundred thousand years of creatures with limited consciousness suffering? And only recently has He gotten to enjoy the suffering of billions of them.
Is the omnimalevolent God so un-intelligent that it took Him billions of years with a complete dearth of any sensation whatsoever, before He finally managed to complexify proteins enough to lead to, millions of years later, creatures that could experience neural feedback regarding the destruction of their bodies (pain)?
Why didn’t He just create things roughly as they are now, and then refine further? Because He was so dumb that it took Him billions of years?
3) People like IB. People like IB, who spend their entire lives in thrall to pleasant delusions of an omnibenevolent God, would need to fit into your scheme somehow. Here are some suggestions:
a) People like IB are all faking, and inside, they are suffering even more by having to pretend that they are happy due to a make-believe omnibenevolent God.
b) People like IB aggravate people like you by their irrationality, creating a net frustration gain that outweighs the pleasure they gain from their delusional lives.
c) People like IB eventually end up in Muslim Hell, and Muslims end up in Christian Hell, and so forth, so that the evil God reaps a grand harvest from their post-mortem realization of “having been wrong all along.”
4) Free will. People could make things paradise right now, if they wanted. And they have free will. How does the omnimalevolent God guard against the possibility of that happening at some point? E.g., if the Rothschild holdings were distributed to the Terran people, bankers placed in minimum security agricultural labor camps, and a guaranteed global minimum income established, how would the omnimalevolent God ruin things?
(Or does your omnimalevolent God act like Satan in order to ensure that things will never go well?)
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Yes Higharka, you are exactly right! A naturally self-complicating universe is one of the greatest and most profound proofs for the Creator!
You raise some great points, and I will attempt to address them, although my detail will be limited as I will not discuss the treatise in length until you have actually read the treatise and know what I’m talking about. I hope you can appreciate this.
1) The Creator does not interfere in evolution, and “happiness” is welcomed. Goods (natural and moral) are encouraged.
2) The mechanisms for pain awareness emerged as early as the invertebrate radiation, evident in insects and mollusks, so genuine suffering has existed for billions of years before the first empathetic thought was ever teased loose. See the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness for verification of this fact. One must also consider that time is a meaningless notion to an eternal being.
3) The Creator neither seeks to be known, or worshipped. The construct of theistic belief systems to manage terror and fear (to placate and numb) is a necessity to obviate the threat of revolutionary suicide.
4) Free will is a necessity to ensure suffering is genuine. And again, goods are encouraged. To give you one example cited in the book: It has been estimated that the German chemist and inventor of synthetic fertilisers, Fritz Haber, is responsible for saving up to 3 billion lives with his work. It is an astonishing figure when first viewed, a seemingly remarkable blow delivered to the cherished delights of uncertainty and scarcity, yet it is a number that conceals a darker, more pervasive truth. Like natural good, moral good such as Haber’s work, must also be considered a means to greater evil, and in the larger narrative of a Creation working forever towards higher expressions of misery, Haber’s work has in fact created 3 billion harvestable lives that would otherwise be missing from the Omnimalevolent Creator’s debased ledger. Seen from another perspective, Haber’s extraordinary contribution has added billions, if not trillions of hours a year—created out of virtually nothing—to the Creator’s accounts in which the objects of His amusement and nutrition are now naked before the constant ravages of existence, and this opens a new and brilliantly fertile profit stream from which The Owner of All Infernal Names may drink from at his leisure.
(And He’s not “my” Omnimalevolent God, but yours, too)
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If you don’t actually believe in your thesis, where’s the fun? When I argue with IB, at least I know she has genuinely been deceived by Constantine. (<3)
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Who says I don’t believe?
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Me!
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Heathen
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I didn’t say I didn’t believe. I said you didn’t believe. That makes you the heretic, and me the inquisitor.
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Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinner, Christ died for us.”
Love, sacrifice, and mystery all together.
God is good even when I don’t completely comprehend His goodness, or the way of His goodness, or the means by which He accomplishes His good ends, or the complications of how His goodness is interwoven with my own wicked choices and the foibles and sinfulness of man. And Insanitybytes is right:
“I am actually in a relationship with Christ, one that goes far beyond the intellectual and has become tightly entwined with the heart and spirit too. In fact, often when I have been trying to reason faith out, He has slipped in right under the radar, totally defied my rather pathetic attempts at intellectualism, and entered my heart. What can I say, it is what it is. What it is, is most wonderful and bedazzling treasure hunt, not unlike falling in love over and over again….” (Insanitybytes third paragraph)
Lovers know their lover and know the Lover’s love, but lovers know because they are objects of a love they cannot refute, nor can any cause them to doubt.
Most lovers don’t debate that they are loved. They simply declare that they are.
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