Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays, the sadistic god, and why god 'couldn't' create people perfect

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled 

Why didn't God create us in heaven?

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Some people ask why God didn't begin at the end. Begin with the goal. The question is ambiguous.

Ok, then you just met a skeptic who doesn't ask god to begin at the end, but why god apparently doesn't think creating people with inability to sin is better than the current state of affairs he is always bitching about. If you create an environment that causes you to murder people because they are always pissing you off,  we don't need to run our "you dumb-fuck!" reaction through the filter of Calvinism and presuppositionalism before we can be reasonable to consider our reaction reasonable.

1. Technically, "heaven" is the intermediate state, a disembodied, postmortem state between death and the general resurrection.

But it also allegedly existed before the world (the 'heaven' created in Genesis 1:1 isn't the place where god lives, but the "firmament" or whatever can be seen in the sky).

So is the question why didn't God create us after we died? But of course, God can't create us after we die, inasmuch as we must already exist in order to die.
 2. Is the question why didn't God created us in a disembodied state? But that's not an ideal condition. There are many benefits to embodied experience.

Then apparently you think God did not want angels to live in an ideal condition, because they are disembodied.  The same with the evil spirits which your fairy tales say are waiting for final judgment.

There are also many disadvantages to embodiment.  The body requires food, thus the search for food will create trouble in a planet full of bodies competing for food.  How many sins of stealing would be preempted by creating us without need to eat (disembodied state or some other).  The body has sexual desire, and this creates sinful situations. How many sins could have been preempted if god created people without sexual desire via disembodiment or some other state? 

My studies in theology forever put the lie to "god cares".  God deliberately creates situations that cause people to sin, making your god not much different from those prison guards who put two rival gangs in the same yards, knowing fights will inevitably arise.  If we conclude the guards get entertainment out of seeing people kill each other,  we are also reasonable to say your god, so much like these guards, also gets entertainment out of watching people kill each other.  Why do you waste your time using human reason about God, as you always do, if god's goodness is absolutely beyond any possibility of being proven wrong with human reason?  Nothing good on cable?

And your god is like the stupid prison guard who "bitches" about the violence and commands the inmates to stop, while knowing it won't stop until the guards physically intefere.  The simple-minded sunday school version of god that persisted in the masses since the 1st century is contradicted on nearly every page of the bible, unless you are willing to say your god is a sadist...which you'd find support for in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, with v. 63 specifying god will "delight" to horrifically harm people for their sins just as much as he "delighted" to give them prosperity when they obeyed.

In that respect, the question suffers from popular confusion by theologically illiterate people who think heaven is the ultimate goal of human existence.

Then you must think apostle Paul was theologically illiterate, he told people to set their minds in heaven, NOT on earth.  Colossians 3:2.  In biblical parlance that meant avoiding planning for future daily life (Matthew 6:25), which apparently meant specifically that true followers of Christ should not obtain employment to feed and clothe themselves (v. 26, prohibiting efforts to sow and reap).  How much did Jesus demand people stop living for this world?  He promised salvation and abundance to those who gave up custody of their kids  (Matthew 19:29), and he viewed the death of one of his follower's fathers as too unimportant to pay any attention to (Matthew 8:21-23).

Your apparent implication is that because god created us on an imperfect world, our living through the bullshit of this earthly existence is just as important as is reaching the heavenly goal.  But even Paul ventured into Gnosticism, hating his own mortal body and wishing to be separated from it (Romans 7:24).

You die, go to heaven, and live there forever. But that's not Christian eschatology.

Skeptics are only under an obligation to shove you in a corner with questions you cannot answer.  They are not obligated to taper their questions in a way that makes it easy for you to get answers from biblical eschatology.  We are open to the possibility that Christian theology is often self-contradictory. 

3. Is "heaven" being used as a synonym for the final (earthly) state, i.e. the new Eden/new Jerusalem? But God already created Adam and Eve in an Edenic earthly state. They fell.

And under your Calvinism, they only fell because God intended them to fall...yet in Genesis 3 he acts like he never suspected they'd fall and that they let him down (the interpretation most likely held by the original and mostly illiterate farm hands such stories were originally intended to be heard by).  What a deceptive bastard for you to plan and facilitate the Fall, but to act like it is contrary to your purpose.  Not a whole lot different than the prison guards who deliberately put two rival gangs in the prison yard at the same time, then complain and bitch and impose discipline when the fights inevitably ensue.  Fuck those guards, they wanted  this to happen...leaving them no rational basis for bitching.  So FUCK your god, he wanted Adam and Eve to fall, leaving himself no rational basis for bitching.  And yet he curses the earth because of the Fall, every bit like the employer who fires an employee for engaging in unforeseen misconduct.

What...does God reprimand people for doing what he wanted?  "Hey son, I noticed you took out the garbage in exactly the same time and manner as I commanded.  Shame on you, go to your room!'  LOL.
If your god is that far departed from human reason, why do you even bother trying to "explain" this pretentious fuck to anybody except other 5-point Calvinists?

4. Perhaps the question is why didn't God create us perfect? Skip the journey and cut straight to the destination.

Sounds like a plan, except that there would be no "journey" to worry about if he created people perfect.

i) If so, that assumes the process is dispensable.

It is, see Ezra 1:1.  If God can wave his magic wand and successfully convince even idolatrous pagan kings to do his will, then he is equally as much to blame for human sin, as the dog-owner is responsible for the dog attack when they neglect to reasonably restrain the dog.

And the end-result is achievable without experience.

if God "needs" people to experience this stupid life before they can go to heaven, then he is incapable of creating them perfectly in heaven from the start, an attack on his allegedly supreme sovereignty.  Are you sure you wanna play with fire, and give the devil a toe-hold by which he can continue chipping away that the inerrancy of classical theism?

The simple fact is that there are plenty of people on this earth (usually adults) who are never meek, mild, have no sex drive, and therefore we have perfect certainty that God, if he wished  it so, could have created everybody else with the same genetic predispositions and inhibitions (including some teenagers who simply do not feel any need to party or have sex or rebel) and there would be less sin in the world than there is.  And since god apparently finds it worthwhile to ask a sinner to stop sinning, knowing the effort will not produce a perfect result, your god is apparently open to reducing the level of sin in the world, even if the reduction-efforts do a less than perfect job of it.  So you cannot falsify my thesis at this point by pretending that God is too perfect to put imperfect plans into practice.  The reduction of sin in the world would still be legitimately holy and good, even if not the perfect answer to all sin.  So your god's ability to reduce sin in the world without violating anybody's freewill still makes it reasonable to charge him with stupidity.

But is that realistic?

No, given that we are talking about a non-existent being and stupidly pretending we can draw verifiable  inferences from a pool of his attributes that Christian theologians have been disagreeing on ever since Jesus' family called him insane (Mark 3:21).

Take forgiveness. You can't experience forgiveness without prior wrongdoing.

So what's more important to god?  Protecting a little girl from rape, or putting her in situations that will eventually require that she forgive some disgusting pedophile?  How could you be reasonable to attempt human reasoning about this dogshit god of yours, if everything about him is necessarily beyond all possibility of refutation by human reasoning?  If you knew that application of algebra wouldn't solve the problem, why the fuck would you use it to solve the problem?

If you know human reason isn't going to solve the problem of others criticizing your religion, why the fuck do you employ human reason?  How many other times in your life do you intentionally use an obviously insufficient tool to do the job? Do you shave with a banana?  Put cake frosting in the radiator?

The sense of guilt, gratitude, and relief.

Then why would it be "wrong" for you to rape a little girl?  After all, subjecting people to sin is precisely what god does to make people draw closer to him.  Now what, Mr. Calvinist?  God will bitch at you if you fulfill his secret will?  I'm afraid at that point the problem of the stupid sadistic hypocritical god is all yours, not ours.

Then you wonder why even most Christians find your god to be a pure sadist?

So that condition can't be directly created

Sure it can, what the fuck do you think happens to the souls of aborted babies?  They completely miss out on this sinful earthly life, they go directly to heaven.  Now what?  Maybe the aborted babies who go to heaven are forever locked into a neutral existence or limbo because they got there without first living on a sinful earth?  LOL.

Or do we really need to give two shits about Steve Hays unbiblical speculations and his happiness to invoke God's mysterious ways like every other dishonest apologist does when they get cornered by their own logic?

It's a nested effect, internally related to something prior. An intervening history is necessary prerequisite.

Then what is the eternal lot of babies that go to heaven due to abortion?  Reincarnation? how hard would it be to reconcile that with the bible?  Given the sophistry already present in inerrancy-defenses, probably not that hard at all.

ii) In addition, creating everyone sinless and impeccable would preempt the lives of many people whose existence is contingent on a fallen world.

But if he created everybody perfect in heaven, there would be no need to create anybody whose existence is contingent on a fallen world.  If your god wishes to create people who are contingent on a fallen world, then tell him to shut the fuck up when he sees sin happening.  What the fuck else did he expect?  Flowers? 

They are products of chains of events involving sinful agents.

Given how little respect for human life your god exhibits in the bible already, methinks YHWH doesn't really give a fuck about whether a certain potential human's life would be contingent on sinful agents.  He kills and he makes alive.  Sadist be the name of the Lord.

But nice job at showing sin to be so "necessary" to reality that we cannot avoid it, it provides the perfect excuse (as if god's infallible foreknowledge and secret will, didn't do that job already).  But then again, you see nothing stupid about a god who sets up sinful situations, then pretends he is "angry" about it when his secret will is fulfilled in a perfect way, so I didn't write this post in the hope of convincing you.  You are completely hopeless.  You'd probably kill yourself if you found out 2nd Timothy 3:16 was talking about the copies just as much as the originals.

 I write this piece to warn others away from the stupidity of your god, your Jesus and your Calvinism.