Talk:Eutheism and dystheism

message: This article is the result of merging several articles, Dystheism, Eutheism and dystheism, and Maltheism.   Refer to those articles for the histories and related Talk.  In particular, see Talk:Maltheism for most of the discussion before Dec 21, 2004.  --BM 21:50, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

message: This majority of this article seems to discuss dystheism.  Perhaps eutheism should be made an article and this could be its counterpart.  Regarding the previous person's comment, I do not believe that dystheism is the same as lacking omniscience. -Moogle from 128.187.0.164 04:25, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impartial to dystheism? 

message: What are the differences between Satanism and Maltheism?  I think that would be an important point to make, if only because of the stigma of Satanism.
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I think the main difference, as indicated by the article, is that a Maltheist doesn't celebrate or even necessarily believe in "the devil". The Emmanuel Goldstein analogy is a good one, imho. I also disagree on the point made above regarding the term "maltheism" necessarily being connected to Satanism (and let's not get into Levay, I mean the actual devil worshipping kind). 
A malicious and deceptive monotheistic God that is to be loathed is a very different concept from a rebellious angel/minor-god that rebels against the "#1 God", starts his own kingdom and is to be celebrated for it. There is quite a lot that seperates these two worldviews.
: Whoever wrote this description, I compliment you on your insight. This is the very difference between Maltheism and Satanism in a nutshell. It is not a matter of dissociating ourselves from any stigma associated with Satanism by God worshippers—hell, you think telling people you believe that the God most people worship is evil helps us avoid that sort of stigma? I am frankly disturbed by those who want to lump together all people who don't share their positive opinion of God into one basket, simply for their convenience. Your comments make the distinction clear, and demonstrate that the two are not the same merely because some people would prefer to believe that this is so. -Craig zimmerman 03:19, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Satanism/Maltheism differences 

message: this article still has the same old problem: It says "Maltheists believe", "Maltheists do", etc., but there is no written source, publication, organization or anything at all that authoritatively speaks for the "maltheists" of this world. So apart from the self-evident "maltheists believe that God is evil, or not wholly good", all these statements are not verifiable in any meaningful sense. dab (ᛏ) 12:01, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you Morzas. As I mentioned before, I have to wonder what would it take to "legitimize" Maltheism in an adequate way? The fact that people use the term, that people believe this way, doesn't seem to be enough. Do we have to be "blessed" by an academic authority, apparently, before inclusion is warranted? Do we have to build a church that God worshippers would firebomb? These criteria would seem to make entries for many groups unworthy of entry here (as I've already suggested, the Marranos for one). -Craig zimmerman 03:25, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do in fact agree with the majority of the article, but the term maltheism is only barely ever used. In fact, I would be very interested to know how many people actually do believe that a God exists that is evil, instead of using it as hypothetical viewpoint to defend antitheistic similarities of secularism, atheism and agnosticism. I do believe that the bulk of this article makes perfect sense in the antitheism article, with a reference to a smaller maltheism article. The majority of references in the article refer to sources who claim to be atheist and use maltheism in a hypothetical sense. This article should reflect that. In no way do I want to harm the term: I think it is a completely useful and valid description of people who believe in God, and God being evil. Preserving that meaning should absolutely prevail. Precisely its value as hypothetical viewpoint in religious discussions makes maltheism legitimate. Robert John Kaper 21:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: maltheists believe

message: While I understand many Christians like to group atheists with God-haters, atheism is rather badly out of place when categorised as a dystheistic belief system. I'm not disagreeing many atheists today tend to think eutheistic views do not make logically much sense if one reads the Bible as it is (see the Skeptic's Annotated Bible for examples), but atheism itself is neither dystheistic, a belief nor a system. --Lakefall 21:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atheism is not a belief system 

message: I made the following change, because the latter examples cited were non-canonical, and, I thought, weakened the paragraph's argument:
"They note that God tells people that it's wrong to kill, but then exhorts them to kill in his name at his behest (e.g., the slaughter of the native inhabitants of Canaan by the returning Hebrews, the Christian Crusades, the Inquisition, the missionary practices of colonial Europeans, and today's Islamic Jihad). Some argue that these were all examples of free will."
changed to...
"They note that God tells people that it's wrong to kill, but then exhorts them to kill in his name at his behest (e.g., the slaughter of the native inhabitants of Canaan by the returning Hebrews). Some argue that this was an example of free will."
:The section is about Biblical support, so your point is taken. However, I restored the reference to those latter examples as more recent instances of the same phenomenon. Craig zimmerman 21:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biblical support for dystheistic viewpoint... 

message: This article consistently presents the dystheistic opinion more than its opposition. It also uses phrases like "dystheists believe...", which seems like a weasel word to me. Finally, it doesn't reference sources for most of its assertions about dystheism. It just lacks an encyclopedic tone overall.Makerowner 03:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV?