If a Single God Exists and Is Responsible For Creating Our World, This God Is a Jerk

~~~ Answering Joe's Round 2 Responses ~~~ Joe's Response: "He did not force man to sin.....he knew that they would but he gave them the option. He gave man the ability to choose between right and wrong. We still have that today.. It's not just the Garden of Eden. God had two options, 1. create man so they would be FORCED to worship him (which would make him a jerk), or 2. Give man freedom to make his own dicisions and face the consequences. What would you have him do? Adam and Eve made a pact with the devil....shouldn't God punish them for that? After he gave them paradise..." My Response: There are numerous problems here: 1. Remember that God is being defined as predating everything and creating all while being infallible, all knowing, and all powerful. God cannot both create "man" with full knowledge of the decisions "man" will make and still consider that "man" was given options. Imagine if an author were writing a book with lots of characters. These characters then performed certain actions. How can the author in earnest be mad at these characters? The author explicitly created these characters knowing ahead of time what they would do. Now imagine that these characters the author has created can feel real pain and suffering the way you and I do. The author then brings nasty things into the world of these characters causing them pain and suffering. Sound like a jerk? Absolutely. 2. If you don't want to acknowledge point 1 here, then you have to concede you're making an obvious either-or fallacy. There are other possibilities besides the two you gave. This God could allow "man" to make its own decisions (this assumes there's free will in the first place) and not give nasty consequences. By unnecessarily introducing these nasty consequences (such as landmine type catastrophes over the globe and familiar rectal pain syndrome) God meets the definition of a jerk yet again. These consequences are not necessary and if they came about in the way you are claiming, then this God is a jerk for having introduced them. If God wanted to teach some sort of lesson through the events you are claiming, this God could have taught this lesson by other non jerk-like means. However, God chose to be a jerk instead by teaching some sort of lesson through introducing some serious nasty things in the world. To accuse God of not being able to teach lessons by less nasty means would be accusing God of being uncreative. This does not fit with God being all powerful, all knowing, and infallible. 3. You seem to insinuate something like original sin in your response. That a God would do that at all is pretty jerk-like. Imagine if the President of a country had the lawful power to punish anyone and spotted someone stealing. Now, instead of only punishing the perpetrator, the President also punishes the rest of the citizens in the country (who had nothing to do with the initial crime) AND the children (also who had nothing to do with the initial crime) they've yet to have. Does this President sound like a jerk? Of course, and so does God if what you're claiming is true. 4. Even if the options you gave were the only two (which they aren't), God is still using coercion to get what it wants in your option two. The fact that this God wants to be worshiped so bad that it will coerce "man" in order to receive worship shows that God is self-centered. Being self-centered meets the qualification of being a jerk. God is essentially saying worship me and don't sin (whatever sin is) or else I'll give you and your offspring nasty things such as landmine-like natural disasters and lifetime rectal pain disorders (very jerk-like). If God doesn't directly state the possible consequence then it's another example of God being a sneaky jerk. Joe's Response: "Your just calling God names now.... the flood changed every water system on the planet, due to sin.... And again God gave us choices, he lets us run our lives. do you want him to protect us from everything while we sin??" . . . "It [Joe's ad hominid attack] has to do with the absurdity of your claim. You're whole argument is just you insulting God over and over again, That obviously stems from something." My Response: I've addressed the original sin and choices part. As far as me establishing that God is a jerk, that's the main claim I'm defending. You're going to need to remember that part if you plan to get points in this debate. Also, if my claim is so absurd, then it should make your job that much easier. Finally, my personal stance on God has no influence as to the reality of a God being or not being a jerk, assuming God exists in the first place. This irrelevance is the very reason your ad hominid attack is a fallacy. Joe's Response to Proof by Contraposition: "Wrong, the devil does nasty things" "Because of the existance of satan you cannot make this claim." "Satan....go for it." My Response: As far as this devil thing goes, you need to keep in mind that the definition God receives in this argument requires God predate the devil and create all that is. Because God predates all and creates all that is, it must conclude that God created the devil, if the devil indeed exists. God is infallible and all knowing so creating the devil was purposeful and for the explicit reason of generating harm. This purposeful choice of having the devil give harm would still be true even if my definition of God didn't require that God created the devil. This is because God is also all powerful and infallible. I'll use the author analogy from earlier now. If the author was not a jerk, the author would not have introduced a character such as this devil knowing the harm the other characters would endure just as you and I can experience harm. We can thus conclude that if a character such as the devil was introduced, the author must have been a jerk. Because this author example is analogous it follows that God introduced the devil, so God must be a jerk. ~~~My Conclusion ~~~ I've given a definition of God for this argument: infallible, all knowing, all powerful, being responsible for the creation of all that is, and predating all. Because of these attributes of God, anything that exists which is harmful, even if it comes about from another being, is the purposeful result of God's will. The arguments I've given in addition to the given author analogy illustrates how this is so. God goes beyond even the author in that God is also infallible. This is even more evidence that any nasty things in the world can be attributable to God, because by this definition of God, nothing can occur by accident. I have shown throughout this debate that the harmful things that exist in this world such as familiar rectal pain syndrome and natural disasters are brought about by the will of God, given God exists. Finally, for one to willingly carry out these terrible events would be for one to be a jerk as I have defined. God is proven to be responsible for these terrible events. Therefore, as I state in my main claim, God is a jerk.