Problem of Evil/Suffering/Victimization Must be A Design Flaw

This is a response I made to a Christian on the "Problem of Suffering".
The problem of suffering is really a problem of victimization, where gods 'gift' of free will enables the stronger to victimize the weak, with god allowing it in some of the most horrible ways imaginable, and Christians blame humans for it. Effectively blaming the victim. One persons free will impedes another. Obviously a SUBOPTIMAL design.

A lot of the 'sins' are committed because they are LIKED or are PLEASURABLE for people. This is a reaction that is built into people, conversely like the nausea reaction people get around vomit. If God had built the urge to vomit into people when they think of having sex with children the there wouldn't be so many church authorities wanting to molest children.

Unpacking "The Atonement" Project

This Project has been moved here, please follow the link and resume at the new location.
This is a long term project intended as a collaboration with theists using shared documents with diagrams to Analyze the Concept of the Atonement as much as possible to assess its coherence.

STATUS 20100116

Currently coping with interpretability issues

INTRODUCTION

Project Documentation Index

[The questionnaire in the lower part of the article was an attempt to define some terms. Feel free to try your hand at filling in the questionnaire in the bottom portion and join the discussion. I'd like to get feedback from Adherents to other religions, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, etc]
So now I ask you, how can God show any mercy at all if he is required by his own perfect state to be 100% just?

One of the theist commenters said
The atonement gives God the ability to have justice completely fulfilled while allowing him to be merciful. If we repent of our sins, the justice has already been fulfilled by Christ so God can fully forgive the transgression without the need for added punishment. You don't have to use the atonement, free agency, but it is available for all. Without the atonement it is impossible to have a perfect God.

so then Harlan Quinn said...

I'm trying to understand your answer to your question, so below I've tried to "unpack" it for closer inspection.

would you mind correcting and filling in the missing pieces please?
=====
God shows mercy
and is 100% just
because he is required by, or is a consequence of his perfect state

Gods perfect state depends on the atonement.

* The atonement is defined as _________________

* Mercy is defined as _________________

* The atonement is merciful because _____________

* The atonement is 100% Just because ____________

* Justice is defined as ____________________

if we repent of our sins
AND
the atonement has been done
There is no need for added punishment

* Normally there is a need for punishment because _________________

* Normally punishment for our sins is ___________________

* Our sins are described as _________________

* Repenting of our sins is not sufficient to fulfill the criteria for punishment because _________________

* Free Agency is defined as __________________.

Where Does the Soul Fit?

Abstract: The concepts of the "Soul" and "Free Will" are tightly coupled and are misunderstandings of emergent properties of complex biological systems due to fallacious causal oversimplifications and are, in effect, a phenomena analogous to a rainbow. In the case of a soul that is separate from the self it would be judged by God for actions it did not condone. In the case of the soul as the self, the soul is locked into the body every night during REM sleep and is catastrophically impaired by malfunctions of the body it resides in. While religions are divided on whether animals have souls and/or spirits, with or without them, animals have some of the same types of cognitive abilities as humans and they get along well within their biological limitations. The philosophical soulless zombie as the null hypothesis for souls fits with established knowledge better than the "soul" described in unauthenticated bronze age "divinely revealed" texts.

Request for Comments on Christian Inter-denominational Criticisms

[Rev. 20091121] If you would like to contribute, please add links to Christians criticizing other Christian denominations in the comments section. I'd like to populate the sidebar on the right with them. I'm going to take a break from posting anything for a couple of days to hopefully collect more comments and to work on some more content. To see whats in the works, you always can click on the "Quirp articles in draft" in the sidebar.
Thanks in Advance.

Faulty Analogy of Gods as Shepherds and "The Problem of Victimization"

Theists use a shepherd analogy to describe the relationship between Gods (i.e. Jesus and Krishna) and us. However, a simple seconds reflection or a trip to your local animal shelter should reveal the flaw in that analogy.  Theists who follow a loving, caring characteristically good god have spent thousands of years trying to resolve the Problem of Evil.  I say, why worry about the WHOLE problem of evil? Good problem solving techniques break complicated problems down into little pieces, so they should just pick a small piece and start there. Lets start with "The Problem Of Victimization".

Scope, Definition, Equivocation and Semantic Drift

When talking with the Theists, they often misuse the word heart. They say things like "Know in your heart". I recommend not tolerating that type of thing and point out to them that hearts pump blood and can't know anything. By tolerating a loose use of terms, it promotes "entropy" in the meaning of the word, allowing the meaning to shift, thereby permitting equivocation to take place, thereby permitting an illicit type of confirmation and commitment or acceptance of its appropriateness, thereby propagating inaccurate information.

Beyond Mesopotamia: A New View Of The Dawn Of Civilization

[Rev. 20091117] ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2007)

"For decades, school children have learned that human civilization emerged about 5000 years ago along the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia, along the Nile, and along the Indus River. But archaeologists working in a broad arc from the Russian steppes through Iran and onto the Arabian Peninsula are finding evidence that a complex network of cities may have thrived across the region in roughly the same era, suggesting a dramatic new view of the emergence of human civilization."

This is significant because up to this point, Euro-centric, Biblical archeology and (to a small degree) Nazi propaganda have skewed the view of civilizations origins and minimized the contribution of non-near eastern and non-semitic speaking cultures.

Learn To Be Psychic In Ten Easy Lessons

From Skeptic Magazines website you can download the document for fun, games, sabotaging "psychic readings" and future reference.
Excerpt from the documents introduction follows below.

How Do Theists Know That God Communicates With Them?

Recently I had a discussion with a religious friend and asked him what I consider to be a key defining question. I've tried to record the dialog here as accurately as I can, but obviously the following is not a transcript. During the course of the conversation the "relationship" topic came up.  Knowing that communication is an important part of a relationship I asked him "Does God talk to you?".

Special Pleading

Special Pleading from Wikipedia

...Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.

Theist Equivocation Of "Grace" Used in Combination With The Strategy of Minimization In Dialog.

Equivocate, from Dictionary.com

–verb (used without object), -cat⋅ed, -cat⋅ing.
to use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead; prevaricate or hedge: When asked directly for his position on disarmament, the candidate only equivocated.

Thomas Jefferson Performed Data Cleansing On The Gospels

In 1804 Thomas Jefferson, one of The United States "Founding Fathers" published "The Life And Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" (online text). Today it is commonly known as the "Jefferson Bible". It was his attempt to preserve the teachings and philosophy of Jesus without the supernatural aspects and the parts that he perceived as misunderstandings and mistakes of the Gospel authors. This is one example of Data Cleansing of scripture, and remarkably, it was carried out by one of the most esteemed men in History.  It seems that Thomas Jefferson would agree that "once you get the God out of Wisdom Literature, it can be enjoyed by everyone".

Once You "Get The God Out", Wisdom Literature Can Be Enjoyed By Everyone.

Generally speaking, Wisdom Literature (<- that Wikipedia entry needs revision) are texts written intended to accumulate knowledge used to teach. Unfortunately Wisdom Literature is usually associated with local deities. The fact that it has been associated with a local deity, isolates it to a culture and makes it generally inaccessible to anyone not open to information associated with another culture or deity. Some examples of Wisdom Literature are easily found in the Scripture of most religions. To my disappointment, I've heard and seen people whom I respect very much, whom I consider to be intelligent, and who consider themselves "free thinkers", categorically discredit and disregard ideas contained in religious scripture as "Woo Woo" and irrelevant. An example of a religious concept that is relevant and adds value to civilization even without the God is Yoga and Meditation.   Once you get the God out of  Wisdom Literature, Wisdom can be enjoyed by everyone.

Brief Introduction To The Vedas

[Revised 20091103] This is the first article in a series of Brief Introductions to Hindu Scriptures. As with other ancient religious texts, these are generally considered to be divinely revealed. Divinely revealed information has all the problems identified by Information and Data Quality Dimensions, the most obvious are the Intrinsic dimensions of Accuracy, Believability, Objectivity and Reputation.  Hinduism is the oldest religion and the Vedas are its foundation.

40% Of Scientists Have A Belief In A God? Okay, Which God?

If a believer says that "it is not unreasonable to believe there is intelligence behind our natural laws"
then they should agree that there must be an intelligence behind the intelligence of our natural laws. But isn't that absurd? Its got to stop somewhere, so why don't we stop before we get to Gods.  There is obviously no way to prove which God it is if they are not going to present themselves, so we might as well say, there is no God. If we ask a God to present itself unambiguously to us and it doesn't, isn't that exactly what we would expect if there really wasn't any God? What difference does a God that does not interact make anyway?

How Can Anyone Know Anything About A Mysterious God?

Recently in a rejoinder over at Debunking Christianity one of the participants made the following comment challenging a non-believer to

"Account for the information design that every atheist scholar admits that exists but lives in denial explaining away."

Fraud and Religion

The tragedy at the "Sweatbox" resort highlights several problems with Religion.
'Sweatbox' victims were attending 'Spiritual Warrior' program, CNN, October 10, 2009 -- Updated 2202 GMT (0602 HKT)

"The use of sweat lodges for spiritual and physical cleansing is a part of several Native American tribes' cultures."

Since terms such as "spirit" are not defined, they are ambiguous. They can mean anything. Since they can mean anything, then there is no definition. When there is no definition, there is nothing to compare it to. Since there is nothing to comapare it to, the definition can change as needed to suit whatever purpose its being used for. There is no way to measure it.
So in the case of "spirit cleansing" some simple common sense questions come to mind.

Afroasiatic and Proto-Indo-European languages

I am confident that ideas are transmitted through language and that ideas follow language. So it follows that as a language spreads across a population, then so will the ideas that are represented by that language. Semitic is of the afroasiatic family of languages, yet Hittite is of the Indo-Eurpopean family, yet it seems that Judaism was developed in Asia Minor/Anatollia/Modern Turkey or "Hittite Land". When did Persia and Greece (which share a common language family) dominate the Levant where Israel and Judah are located? When do we start seeing ideas that are typically contained in the indo-eurpoean language start creeping into Judaism? When did Egypt start to lose its dominance? To be continued...

Lord Krishna, Human Manifestation of God, 3000 years before Jesus

Hindu is the oldest religion known to man so far. It has been argued that Christianity borrowed heavily from Hinduism. Lord Krishna was the physical manifestation of one of the Gods of the Hindu Trinity who is named Vishnu. Vishnu came to earth as a Human 5000 years ago to battle evil and show people the right way to live. This is an introduction to Lord Krishna, the human manifestation of the God Vishnu.

Giving God The Glory By Misinterpreting Intent and Purpose In Inaminate Objects

I was watching Animal Cops (a "reality" TV show) the other night and a Veterinarian was working on a potentially lifeless dog (bear with me, this story does have a happy ending).