I'm certain this book adds several hundred, if not close to a thousand other instances to that list.
1.) “what evidence lacks?” As you provide zero
2.) completely contextual on one’s definition and version of what inner peace is. May I ask how you know that by the way? Didn’t know there was an inner peace statistic for entire human population. Also which god, cause there are hundreds. And then infinite number of interpretations of what that god wants or stands for.
3.) you need citations to back that claim up. A lot of citations. And if your going to say they trump them, you need to explain why. Not cite a book that you clearly would have confirmation bias for and something your opponent would never read themself.
4.) here’s a book: https://www.amazon.com/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322. It’s written by ex evangelical preacher (who’s now an atheist) as to why the Judeo-Christian god is an awful being full of hate, jealousy, murderous cruelty, and narcissism. He changed his faith due to the compelling evidence that god is not a good entity or character based on the source material and aligned with what he acknowledged as stronger arguments that the judeo-christian god doesn’t exist.
I made that paragraph not to actually counter you, but to show you what you just did to the person you attempted to counter. This is not how you argue with someone. You just sent him a link to a book they’ll never read, and cited it as the reason for your beliefs to be objectively correct without providing any evidence from yourself to say why it logically makes sense that god exists.
Saying god exist due to (fill in blank here) and that philosophical ideologies that involve a monotheistic god are better than ones without one because a book you read told you so are all groundless arguments.
never heard of something like this being compiled before. but, may be u can give this a try:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1454918322/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This book summarizes horrible stories in OT with some level of indexing. it might help.
The (Christian) god you do believe in is described in extensive detail in the Bible. So if the god a hypothetical atheist doesn't believe in differs from the god you do believe in, it may be that the atheist is paying closer attention to the text than you are. (I say "may be", but in my experience that's true nearly 100% of the time: Christians who claim atheists are attacking a straw man version of their god almost invariably mean the atheist is attacking the actual god of the Bible, rather than an abstracted, sanitized, cherry-picked, theodicy-cleansed version that's more palatable to modern sensibilities.)
Dawkins' summation is dead on: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" (for chapter and verse from the Bible for each word of that quote, see Dan Barker's book). I can't imagine why anyone would worship such a vile entity, but it does explain why so many Christians recreate their god in a more pleasing image.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." -- Richard Dawkins
(Now in book form with handy references, thanks to Dan Barker.)
Former evangelical preacher Dan Barker wrote <em>God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction</em> for you.
Why are you asking me? I never claimed it did.
That said, every Christian I've ever known has wanted it to be true--and thought it must be true--because they don't want to believe their god is a monster (despite the overwhelming evidence that he is). That's why apologists have had to spend so much time on it as well. And OP's thought experiment just gives the Christian god that same benefit of the doubt.
But if a Christian is willing to grant that the god they choose to worship is so unimaginably cruel that he'd punish dead infants--as they might be if they're aware that he gloated about forcing parents to "eat the flesh of their sons and daughters," for example--I'd say a pretty obvious followup suggests itself.
This reminds me of this famous Richard Dawkins quote:
> The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
You can see Biblical evidence for every single one of those adjectives at this web site, courtesy of Dan Barker/FFRF, who wrote a book based on Dawkins' statement. Though personally my favorite part there is "in all fiction."
In addition to the links you provided for the Dawkins quote, another good source is this web site that provides multiple citations for every adjective in the quote and a few extras as well, taken from former pastor Dan Barker's book God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (which was written specifically to document that quote).
Because god has absolute knowledge and power and does nothing to help any situation except aggravate it for drama purposes. Sam and Dean don't have power or foreknowledge and are just trying to clean up the world god left behind and they don't know what apocalypse will be caused by their actions. God does and he's literally been toying with them since day 1.
He helped in season5 just to serve the story and again 1 order from god and the archangels would have stopped fighting and Sam and Adam wouldn't have wound up in the cage.
God can help and not totally abandon his creation without interfering free will and by your logic he interfreared with Lucifer and Amara's free will by caging them and he's inconsistent that way.
>They say he can see future outcomes but he did not see Sam shooting him. The same he did not see Sam and Dean releasing Amara.
He saw both of those and did nothing about them because its all a game to him and for the shooting him, he's got some plan with that as well. I'm thinking he knew they would fight him on Jack and he knew this would be the final season so he wanted them to fight him and made himself the final villain on purpose. That's a good story but it still makes him an asshole for toying and manipulating everyone since the beginning.
God helping doesn't violate free will I mean he could even have just helped the individual fights more by leaving more hands of god lying around. Sam and Dean need help to beat anything Angel or higher.
Well yes, if a human had the cure to everything they would also be evil for not using it. I don't hate god but in the FICTIONAL world where he exists but does nothing he is evil. I mean in Supernatural he exists and is responsible for everything including angels and demons and is manipulating everything. So yes I hate the fictional character as a fan of the TV show. I do not blame some being for all the bad in real life or thank anyone other then myself and the rest of humanity responsible for the good. That's religious people that do for god and the devil respectively. Neither one exists but if they did then god would be the worst monster and supernatural is portraying him accurately to how he was in the bible. Where you and I differ is that I understand that this makes him the villain and am not making excuses for him. The character of god is the worst character in all of fiction (https://www.amazon.ca/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322)
In our world we are alone and have to fix everything ourselves, but it also means that we weren't evil's or tainted since Eden and that ridiculousness. Unlike supernatural we don't have monsters demons or angels trying to kill us And there's also no worry of fire and brimstone for being anything less then perfect. Nothing created and abandoned us and the good and bad are just nature and that's certainty preferable to the fictional god's master plan. With the Supernatural world in play though god is responsible for everything and has a responsibility to fix it because he's the one who broke it in the first place.
> The 2 angels in his house didn't even discourage this idea!
That's a great point I've never heard anyone raise.
> After I read these particular verses, I was on a mission to find more stories and situations that would question my belief in this "loving god," the god I had worshiped, defended, and dedicated most of my life to.
There's a whole book for that! Or you can always take a look at BibViz.
It's amazing how we're never exposed to these stories as children when they're teaching us to be good little Christians, since the Bible's practically overflowing with them. Though I'm 100% confident my parents were completely in the dark as well. I'm guessing the clergy realize that people might be a little less likely to sing the praises of a god who orders genocidal slaughter and forces parents to eat their own children.
> I know I'll eventually tell everyone because I refuse to live a lie, hide how I truly feel, and how I think.
Tremendous respect to you for that. I definitely understand why people want or need to hide their non-belief, but I'm always happier to hear someone say they're not going to give in to the bizarre pressure to pretend they still believe in celestial Santa Claus.
> Ouch... This will be uncomfortable and awkward.
Probably true (unfortunately), but you sound like you've got the temperament and strength to deal with it. Good luck to you, and we're here if you need advice or just a place to vent.
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in all Fiction.
I was literally dry heaving while reading it.
http://www.amazon.com/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322