Verified answer

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire

I would agree with it if it was "Belief in a cruel God OFTEN makes a cruel man" or "Belief in a cruel God CAN make a cruel man".

However, if you believe that your god is just and that your god was justified in wiping out innocents (like during the flood, as part of the plagues, or when Joshua was fighting for the "promised land"), it is likely that you will excuse or justify similar actions that you take.

I'd say that Einstein was not only smart, but had a good understanding of morality.

I agree that a belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. but I would disagree with Einstein, though Einstein was a great physicist, that doesn't make him a great philosopher. as Einstein said himself "great scientist are poor philosophers". ethics are essentially grounded in ones world view, as Pain pointed out "belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man". but if you take God out of the picture, you have no bases for a objective world view, thus no foundation for a objective ethical system. you would have to resort to subjective ethics which in the end is futile. there would be no real difference Between the Nazis and the allay forces who were against them. in other words there needs to be some sort of foundation for a good ethical system, otherwise you end up in chaos. a room full of nothing but shouters. choosing an ethical system would be the same as choosing your favorite ice cream treat.

good video by noted philosopher theologian and expert on western ethical history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC2SpvYboC4

EDIT: its not merely about belief in God but about worldview which is what religion is. morality is based upon a worldview. religion is a claim to an objective world view. while the deist view is merely an absentee landlord. thus my point is made again. human beings are left with making meaning out of a meaningless universe. morality simply becomes relative to the human experience (there are many human exepriences, or ways we view/experience the world). which begs the question, what does it mean to be truly human in the first place?

St AUGUSTINE

"WE SEE WHAT WE ARE"

And it was Plato and Aristotle that excoriated Homer and Hesiod for making the gods cruel.

Paine is way in the back on that as on many things he said.

"Who has most reason to fear hell: he who is in ignorance whether there is a hell, and who is certain of damnation if there is; or he who certainly believes there is and hopes to be saved ?"

Einstein was nowhere the moralist that Blaise Pascal is.

AS for what you are aiming at with your post, I couldn't disagree more.

Samuel Johnson was a most sane and reasonable man and he said what most people on earth have always thought :

"Since all rational agents are conscious of having neglected or violated the duties prescribed to them, the fear of being rejected or punished by God has always burthened the human mind."

Johnson: Rambler #110 (April 6, 1751)

False. Belief in the God Yahweh makes a Godly man.

"...Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death...."

that's not even close to what my life is with christ.

i don't know why you think christians live in constant fear of punishment. i certainly don't. i do the things i do, because i'm inspired by God to do them.

I avoid doing certain things considered as sin, not because I'm afraid of burning in hell, but because i have lost the desire to do them.

i am a new creation in christ.

no longer unavoidably. there have been people who believed in one malevolent deity or yet another, that did no longer act "merciless" in on an familiar basis existence. maximum of them have been purely frightened of what their vast undesirable god would do in the event that they did no longer act a undeniable way. no longer that i think of this is the acceptable thank you to maintain order, yet I digress. What i come across ridiculous nonetheless are people who're certainly merciless and paint a merciless image of their deity, yet on a similar time declare that they are no longer hateful, and conceal at the back of self-righteous excuses. maximum in many cases this shows up in strains like "i'm going to wish for you."

just wondering who is it that portrays the Lord God as a cruel God, is it not the athiests and homosexuals, as homosexuals say "They are born that way" whereas I believe God would not create someone homosexual and then make a law forbidding same. I prefer

"We thank the Father that Thou hast planted

Thy Holy Name within our hearts

True knowledge faith and Life immortal

Jesus Thy Son to us imparts

Thou LOrd didst make all for Thy pleasure

Dost give men food for all his days

Giving in Christ the bread eternal

Thine be the Power, Thine be the Praise.

I also believe our Lord God is a Just God who cannot condone killing of the unborn, or same sex marriage which He has forbidden, greed, and scornfull towards Him, defrauding your neighbour, molesting of children, how could children trust Him, if He was not a faithfull and Just God?

Oh oh! So you did get it after all. Congrats.

Have you noticed when Religious folks do cruel things, they often quote their holy books?

It's just another proof that man created Religion with a cruel God who thinks just like him.

Or is evil simply a "lack of good?"

Can one be cruel and evil without free will?

Why would God create us at all to begin with? God can't "get" anything from us. Meaning, nothing is added to God because of us. We do not add to God's glory. If we are created by God, then the creation itself glorifies God. Nothing we can "do" can add to God's glory that already IS.

So, if God were evil, what would be the point of creating something cruel and malevolent? If God were a sick and twisted God and created us just to watch his creation destroy themselves, God could not get any satisfaction out of it whatsoever, because it would neither add nor subtract from his glory. If God can do anything, and create us from nothing, there is NOTHING he could gain - pleasure, more glory, etc, from watching his creatures destroy each other. There's no personal satisfaction in that, even if God were an evil God.

But, God is perfect. Why? Because God IS. Anything He creates is by His design. So, God defines what is good. He defines perfection. He creates the definition. He created man to walk, so we walk. He created our definition of goodness. What we see as truths, He created them. So, if we see a Truth to be that in order to be good, one has to be loving... well, God created that first. If we see that to go against these truths is to be evil and cruel, then God deigned that going against what He defined as good is... evil.

So evil is not something that "exists," but it is the antithesis of what exists.

It doesn't make sense to try and reverse that. You can try the scenario: An evil God creates evil creatures who destroy themselves, and some of his creatures start to rebel and become good and fight the evil... The scenario almost destroys itself as quickly as it started.

Where does the good come from and where does it lead to? Away from God? To some good universe that is separate from God? If God is evil, then ALL of his creation would be evil. There could be no definition of good because it would not be possible for good to exist. It would be impossible to exist, period. Just contemplate for a bit what it would mean to have an entirely evil God... It's impossible!

Well, what if God created both good and evil creatures? Again. Impossible. God IS. God cannot create both good and evil because to do so would contradict each other. God could not create good at all if he could create evil. So then, there would be only evil. If there were only evil, there would be no possibility for good to enter the world. But, there IS a possibility for evil to enter the world if all that is created is good.

How? Because where goodness cannot come from evil, evil can come by rejecting good. As I stated earlier, it's the antithesis of good. Good food can go bad and become rotten. But rotten food cannot become fresh and good food once it is spoiled. Once something has been destroyed, it cannot go back to being new again. So if God is evil, no good can come from him. But, if God is good, then only good can come from Him, and evil can come about from the rejection of Him.

Since goodness does exist, then it solidifies that the very being of God is good.

I could keep going as this is a big topic, but there are many other authors out there who address this topic. I suggest you read some of them. St. Thomas Aquinas would be a good place to start. If he's too heavy, I suggest C.S. Lewis.

I would say so. The Westboro Baptists seem to be pretty hateful, and they believe in a hateful god