A Monotheistic God Probably Does Not Exist

Unnecessary suffering and evil according to premise 4: My example of this will be the raping, murder and deaths of children and babies. I believe that any suffering of children is unnecessary and serves no justifiable purpose. What greater good comes from child rape, or any abuse for that matter? Should we just accept that God allows children to be raped and murdered for a good reason! And when you get to heaven you"ll say, "Oh my! There really was a good reason! Thank you Lord for allowing my child to be raped and murdered!"" I can"t imagine any scenario in which this could ever make sense or bring any good. No one ever says, "Boy, it sure is a good thing our son died!" or "It"s a good thing those 10 million babies died last year!" By all appearances, it's a sad and unfortunate loss without recompense. While some good can come out of tragedy, it's rarely enough to make up for the loss. It's hard to imagine that such a scheme would actually work, or that God would kill children just to bolster salvation rates. (Why not just kill off an atheist like me?) "You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, "When you"re done, I"m going to punish you." If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That"s the difference between me and your God." ~ Tracie Harris, The Atheist Experience What makes me most insane is the raping of children by supposed religious priest of the Catholic church! What possible greater good can come from supposed MEN OF GOD RAPING CHILDREN? The Bible tells us that God's creation testifies to his nature (Romans 1:20). If God is benevolent and cares for children, yet his creation testifies to the contrary, then he has borne false witness against himself. How can we choose to love God when his creation allows us to logically deduce that he allows for gratuitous and unnecessary evil and suffering? If only men were evil, then we might be able to make a case for God's innocence, but all of creation speaks to either a god of malevolence, or a natural indifference. Additionally, the Bible tells us that most people will not make it to heaven (Matt. 7:13, 21-23), so most people will not even be compensated for their suffering; they will suffer in this life only to be rewarded with more suffering in the next. Most of the harm that befalls children comes from disease and environmental factors, not from malicious human intent. Man did not design harmful viruses, bacteria, and natural disasters. Would it really destroy faith or free will if we lived in a world without these things? Wouldn't we still be able to lie, cheat, steal, assault, kill, destroy, and reject God without them? In order for God to be good this would entail the desire to do all good things equal or above and beyond OUR ability to do good to stop suffering. Anybody with the means and desire to act will act. To not do these things means God either lacks the means or does not have the desire to do so. There cannot be any limitation on God greater than the limitations upon us! Would you stand idly by as someone molested, mutilated and killed your child? If you then, though you are evil, would rescue your child, how much more should your God in heaven if you ask him? But he doesn't. He creates a world where it can happen, and then stands idly by as it does! This is unnecessary suffering, what good comes of the abuse and murder of children? If I had the power to stop all children from suffering I would, why doesn't God? If it is good for humans to alleviate suffering then it is good for God to alleviate suffering, but he does not. if God exists, then we face a logical conundrum: why would a good God allow such evil things to happen to children? If he loves our children more than we do, why would he create a world filled with devastation and not safeguard them from it? "Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?" ~ Robert Ingersoll Paradoxes: The main point is that an omnipotent God creates the rules of logic or causal laws, and is then bound to them. As J.L. Mackie pointed out: "Can an omnipotent being makes things which he cannot subsequently control? Or, can an omnipotent being make rules which then bind himself? He then explains the situation this way: "If we answer 'Yes,' it follows that if God actually makes things which he cannot control, or makes rules which bind himself, he is not omnipotent once he has made them: there are then things which he cannot do. But if we answer 'No,' we are immediately asserting that there are things which he cannot do, that is to say, that he is already not omnipotent." J.L Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence," in Mind, Vol. 64 The CONS arguments: 1. If a substance is both (a) contingent and (b) exists, it requires an external cause If I can show one contingent thing to not have a cause then premise one is false. According to modern physics, however things can seemingly happen without cause. There are several things we observe that appear to have no cause. For example, "When an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus." ( God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, by Victor J. Stenger, Prometheus Books, 2007; 124) So at best, the conclusion that the sum of all contingent substances requires an external cause, should be state as some not all, therefore the argument is false. CON: "The God I am arguing for does have the traits of the God of these religions (at least in general) but at the same time does not entail any of these 3 specifically." My response: This statement makes no sense. Perhaps you could explain it better, because it seems contradictory. CON: "Now, no real philosophers ask "who caused God?" That objection is unreasonable." My response: Then I guess I am not a philosopher, and the objection is not unreasonable, it is just as reasonable to ask "Who caused God" as it is to postulate a creation from God, so please answer the question. CON: "Something outside of the sum of contingent things BY DEFINITION is necessary." My response: Okay, I give you credit, I did jump the gun a bit in regards to the universe comment, my bad. So then what is the point to your argument, just to prove "Something is necessary"? Can I make another assumption about your soon to be assumption, that this something is God and he is necessary? This may work philosophically in some ways, even though your syllogism has failed, but there is no empirical proof that the potential something is the God of monotheistic religions anyways. CON: "After that, I briefly went through some of this being's traits that it must have, reminding readers that books could be written on this subject and I am only giving a sketch. Further, WHERE DID I MENTION THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE? DID I? THAT HAS NO BEARING ON MY ARGUMENT SO YOU BRINGING IT UP IS JUST A SMOKESCREEN. My argument has everything to do with the nature of things as contingent and necessary but absolutely nothing to do with the beginning of the universe or anything else" My response: So your argument has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe or anything else, OK. I will assume then you will not be using this argument to prove the possibility of the monotheistic God, which I will remind the readers the Con has not even began to show any evidence for a personal God with the traits defined in my first argument and since I have shown two contingent things that exist without a cause his argument is false and does not prove a God or the God that we are debating here. Also, point four in my argument stands to be true based on the unnecessary suffering and evil done to children with no proof of a greater good available to the CON.