WELCOME!  None of us are 'certain' there is\isn't a deity, but what evidence do you have to believe in one?

Without knowing what exactly constitutes a deity, this is hard to answer.  Many creatures have thoughts and feeling of some sort, so I see no reason a deity couldn't.  Omnipontence is self contradictory, so put that in the impossible bin.(see sig)  One thing I never got out of a decade of christianity or a lifetime of exposure to it is a consise definition of holy.  Many characters in mythology harbour ill will to humanity.  Many real life humans have malicious intentions for humanity.

Hello butterbattle,

This is a collective response to you, Thomathy and hazindu. Thankyou all for your quick replies. As indicated by your valued opinions, some definitions are in order :

1. Deity :

I equate "deity" with "creator" as in the creator of the Universe, the Earth and all living creatures in the world. 

2. Personal deity

By this I mean a creator who is sentient and who possesses some nature that human beings can relate to (e.g. love, hatred, joy, anger) and is interested in human affairs.

3. Omnipotence.

Please allow me to correct my usage of a wrong word. I understand the logical fallacies of omnipotence and omniscience. My point is that this deity is ultimately much more powerful than a human.

Certainly, a being which is able to create the Universe and all its characteristics would possess great dominion over all matter and all living things.

4. Holy.

Again, a wrong choice of words. I would now rather use the word "benevolent". By this, I mean the capacity to display and bestow kindness, gentleness etc.

However, my original question (now corrected) posits this deity as NOT being entirely benevolent. That is, this deity is not always kind, gentle, loving, etc.

5. Malicious

By this, I mean the propensity to commit unnecessary harm or, by inaction, allows unnecessary harm to take place.

 

Hence, based on the above definitions, the point of my question is :

Why do Theists simply assume that if God exists, then He must necessarily be good ?

 

Thanks all,

Okamura

 

 

 

 

 Omnipotence presents some very significant problems in the universe as we perceive it.  The paradox, of course, is that if a being were truly omnipotent, it could deceive us all into believing that the universe is as we perceive it, when in fact, it was quite different.

If there is such a deity, and he chooses to deceive man completely, then the sad reality is that this is reality.  I presume you've seen The Matrix.  Now, imagine that the matrix is real, but instead of fallible machines, it is run by a deity that cannot possibly screw up.  Nobody will ever detect a glitch in the matrix because no glitches can possibly exist.

If this is the case, then "true reality" is beyond all hope of perception, and this reality is the only one that has any meaning whatsoever.  It is reality for us.

Now, consider the concept of hell for a moment.  If there was an evil deity, and he decided that he liked torturing people for all eternity, he might set up an arbitrary standard by which people were selected for hell... say, believing that a god-man sacrificed himself to himself to forgive mankind for being the way they were made by the deity himself.  What reason would we have to believe this god if he told us how to avoid hell?  If he is indeed evil, there's a good chance that he's lying.  After all, an evil god would like to see people in hell, so why would we believe him when he told us how to avoid it?  For all we know, everybody might be going to hell, and God just enjoys watching people squirm, wondering if they're going or not.

Consider also that an evil omnipotent deity might well decide to portray himself as good.  It might tickle his fancy to see legions of followers fall in love with him, only to discover his true nature after death.  

Omnipotence, by its very nature, necessitates the ultimate inscrutability of a god.  No matter how much we may want to trust such a deity, we would be forced to admit total ignorance because of the potential for the "totality of the matrix" I mentioned earlier.  

In other words, granting omnipotence, "evil" and "good" become meaningless as far as humanity's perception is concerned.

 

As you see, you asked a question which is completely meaningless for atheists. They don't have the concepts defined.
I am a reader and practitioner of esoteric theory. This theory is better suited to answer questions of this kind. There are specifically, (and I hope also logically) defined concepts like good, evil, or the sense of life. You decided to ask the atheists in particular, that's OK, and can you tell me why?

Either the universe has been around forever or it had a beginning. I'd say there is a significant chance that there is another "cause" in that respect. On the other hand, we already have probable theories for how the Earth and living things came to be, so the chances of a deity being involved there are pretty low. It'd just be a failure of Occam's Razor.

I have no idea, but the chance of any unsupported, extremely complicated entity existing is horrendously small. In fact, the more complex a claim is, the less likely it should be. God is supposed to have multiple omni traits, so the probability of him existing is about.........well, you can think of it like a limit in Calculus. As complexity goes to infinity, probability goes to zero.

Okay, so he's really powerful, but not, technically, omnipotent. There's really on way for us to calculate the probability of something like this, but this is still so close to zero that the probability is pretty much negligible.

If God is omnipotent, then all harm should be unnecessary harm. Clearly, bad things happen to good people, so by your definition, if there is a God, it must be malicious.

Hahahahaha. 

Isn't it obvious? Because they want Him to be.

 

Er?

I don't see a response to me.

 

  Sure! that's why you've never heard of Igwop!  He's the magical pink elephant with humming bird wings who lives in a distant galaxy.  He made the universe and everything in it, and while he isn't necesarily evil, he is anti social.  Therefore, the fact that you haven't seen evidence of his existence is reason to believe in him!!!!

 

I hope logical fallacies in that paragraph strike you as being quite obvious.  Think about that.

Winney the Pooh made an episode about god?  Didn't their god have fairy instead of humming bird wings?

 

I'm way to sober right now for an argument on the properties of Winnie the Pooh monsters...

maybe later.