What if there is a God and that God is perfect?...

[Baruch]

This is why I have rejected the "judicial" model of theology or reality.  It is absurd.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Well, unless you can refute that a perfect God wouldn't act as though wrongdoing is a good thing OR say that people haven't done things that they knew were wrong then the reason why there is suffering in this world would be the demonstration of this perfect God's displeasure with our wrongdoing. 

Your "perfect God" created us imperfect humans in the first place, right? Then he has only himself to blame for our shortcomings. That he directs that displeasure against us instead of the true source, himself, only shows that he is childish and needs to grow up, and thus imperfect. By hypothesis, your god is perfect, so by contrapositivity, a perfect God would not show such displeasure towards us. What would be the point? It would be like a bad carpenter blaming his tools.

[Mike Cl]

Interesting reply, TomFoolery. 

One thing that I think is important to consider is that you would certainly expect this God to always do what is right...since He is perfect.  Therefore, if it is wrong to send you to a place like hell you would expect Him not to do that.  But that reveals that we expect a perfect God to act like it's never good to do wrong.  So I think that shows us the standard we expect God to have if He is perfect.  If we have done anything that we knew was wrong then a perfect God must punish us, since to reward us would be to act like it is sometimes good to do wrong, which a perfect God could never do.  Agree?

No.  And you guessed it--I'm not TomFoolery.  She is much smarter than I.  Anyway.  If God were perfect, he could not create a hell.  A perfect being could not--or at least, should not--be able to create a place of everlasting punishment.  Nothing a person can do on this earth and in the short time we have here, deserve 'everlasting' agony.  No, not even Hitler.  I am not perfect, but I can devise a much more effective way to create a place the 'bad' people should go.  Why not create a place where, ---let's say Hitler---would go after death.  How about make Hitler experience from that person's view and feel that person's emotions, every person he harmed in his lifetime?  That way, the victim of that act would get justice.  And Hitler, after he has experienced the harm first hand from every body he ever harmed, he could then be cleansed.  That way all would win--those hurt and the person doing the hurting.  That would be perfect. 

[Baruch]

An everlasting hell is an idea of the ancient Egyptians.  Even the Hindus ... who believe in hell, don't think you stay there forever .. you get reincarnated eventually into another place.

[bfiddy100]

And to be honest, I'm curious as to why you think any human crime/sin or collection thereoff compiled within a finite lifetime and affecting finite lives can be considered infinite. I'd like it if you could explain further why they'd be infinite. And if so, should we then never let anyone ever out of jail (unless perhaps they come to accept the great JC)?

But aside from our evidently different view on the (in)finity of (the effect of) our actions, there are two more points I'd like to raise as to why a 'perfect' God would never punish anyone. Though I hope we can get deeper into (in)finity business because why it may not scorn the idea of a punishing god, it does show that christian medieval ideas of eternal punishment are immoral.

The second point is that while more than anything else the necessity to be punished is a sign of a fault on the transgressor's part, the necessity to punish is also a sign of imperfection from the punisher. Allow me to explain.
In the real world this punisher is society as a whole. Sure, there are certain people appointed to judge and 'perform' the punishment. But in democracies this happens (or is meant to happen) with the support of the wider society who agree on the terms and rules. We punish to protect our society and it's people from further crimes being afflicted on them. Isolation of problematic and offending individuals in jails thus fits this role. Also, in some cases as per example a fine, it compensates the wronged party. And just to be complete, the threat of a punishment can prevent future crimes. Lastly I'd like to add a very important one: it also gives the punished person to time to atone for his/her crimes and reflect on his/her behavior; wether it's being put in the corner of being thrown in jail. Meaning that after the crime, this person ought to be able to rejoin society as a whole and complete person, without us holding their past against them. (Wether such reflection and dedication to a new, productive life as well as the acceptance without bias by others actually take place, I leave in the middle, but it's supposed to be this way. And that's an important thing to remember about punishment.)
For these reasons one could argue that mankind will, most likely, always need punishment, to some extent, to protect and regulate itself. And I would probably not disagree on that. But we are a 'flawed' species. Punishment would theoretically become obsolete if we had the power and wisdom to do and know everything. If we could make a perpetrator understand what (s)he did was wrong, and be certain that after teaching this the person would never transgress this way again, there would be no need to lock them up for an enlongated time and thus protect society in this way. And if we were all-knowing and all-powerfull, we could do this and be certain of it. (Mind you this has nothing to do with free will. We could use whatever technique necessary to make the transgressor come to this conclusion on his own accord. We would merely know what to say/do to make them realize this and choose for it themselves.) We wouldn't even need to demand compensation for the crime, for one could argue the transgressor would feel the guilt, probably would probably offer it on his/her own accord anyways after seeing the light and we could help the victim in such a way that the transgression left no mark on him/her anyways. At least we could if we were all-knowing and all-powerfull simultaneously. Seeing as the crimes could be solved and resolved in this way, the need for threat of punishment would decrease significantly on it's own. Though perhaps not completely. But take in accord with this that if we were all-knowing and all-powerful we would know how to convince the populace to choose for themselves to not sin and commit crime at all in the first place! Without the need for threats of punishment.
Now, if you read the above, you understand why I would think an all-knowing and all-powerfull God would have no need for punishment. And let's not forget about that all-loving bit which is usually thrown in there. Now if you're idea of a perfect god doesn't necessitate him to be all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving, then I guess I've spent a whole lot of text on nothing. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that not only you believe your perfect God to embody these traits, you also concider them necessary components for your God to be perfect. If I'm wrong about that, let me know. I might be jumping the gun, but most often when I meet religious people, they claim theirs to be such. And I too would describe these features as necessary to the hypothetical deity.
Before we move on to my last point, I need to adress one more thing. In the above text I explained why I view punishment itself obsolete to an all-powerfull, all-loving and all-knowing being by contrasting it to why it's necessary for imperfect creatures like ourselves when governing ourselves. But in that I mentioned that punishment is also meant in our society to allow individuals to repent and atone for their sins and crimes and afterwards rejoin society without any bias held against them, like the prodical son returned. Hell is not punishment in this regard. It's only torture. Neverending. Eternal. It doesn't allow a person to grow. It does not allow a person to learn from his/her mistakes. It does not allow a person to repent or atone. It's simply infinite cruelty. It does not teach people why they were wrong. It does not teach people why they should avoid such behavior in the future. It does not help transgressors to become empathic towards their victims. It does not allow them to reflect. It simply allows them to burn and burn and burn.

Now the last point. And admittedly again this assumes a perfect god embodies omniscience & omnipotence. As well as that it created the universe. If you say this perfect being of yours does not, then fine. We'll see where the conversation leads but I would think it fair to say we have different views on not only what perfection entails and what a God is. In which case, I have to refer to the the other posters in this thread who've pointed out that perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

This is really an easy point to understand. But you have to keep in mind that, again, this has nothing to do with free will.

You have the creator of the universe. Let's start with that deity. That deity, who is all-knowing and all-powerfull, decides to make a creation. Being all-powerfull and all-knowing the way it designs it's creation is exactly what it intended. This means, inevitably, that all that happens in this creation, is as it intended it too. Every aspect of this reality is thus exactly as it wanted it to be.
Any murder. Any rape. Any theft. Any assault. Any war. Any disease. Any sin. Any crime. All is as much it's design as any 'positive' thing. Any hug. Any newborn. Any act of charity. Any flower. Any act of heroïsm. Everything.
Now at this point in the argument often I get the rebuttle concerning free will. Which is why I explicitly stated that it has nothing to do with it. You need to keep your eye on the big picture here. (Sorry if I sound condensending, it just kind of irks me the wrong way when people fail to understand this.) You can claim all you want that I choose not to see the light. That any criminal choses to rape or murder. Chooses to steal or swindle. Chooses whatever sin and thus chooses to offend, not only against the victim in question but also against god. But that's not the case if your all-powerfull and all-knowing god chose to design it's creation so that it would lead to this. It chose to create all of us knowing in advance what all of us would do and choose in life. It could have built it's creation and it's inhabitants anyway it wanted, with any possible outcome to any possible situation. It would have known how to do this and have been able to, or your god is not all-powerful and/or not all-knowing and thus not perfect. And from the infinite creations it could have created it chose to create  this one.
Simply put: If your god had created a world in such a way that none of it's inhabitors would have chosen to do evil, it would have had as much free will as this creation in which some of it's inhabitors chose to do evil. God could have created us with as much free will as we have today and with none of the actual sins being comitted but chose to set up his creation(s) in such a way that they choose to sin.
Another way to explain this: When god made his creation he saw in advance that we would have this conversation. He chose to create it in such a way that none of us are convinced by your arguments. When he could have created it so that the people you talk to are, just as genuinly of their own accord, convinced by your arguments.
Now running with the hypothesis that this world was created by an all-knowing and all-powerfull perfect being and that thus everything that happens inside it is exactly as it planned, it would be immoral for it to punish anyone for any crime because it's what he designed us to (choose to) do. Especially if this punishment is eternal. It's his will that we choose to sin rather than we choose to live piously. This is not punishing a child for chosing to be disobedient. This is in advance choosing to create child who you absolutely know will choose to be disobedient (you'll know when, how and how much) rather than creating a child who will choose (just as much free will) to be obedient, and then punishing that child for being what you wanted it to be.

Thanks for taking the time to reply in such length.  There are many ways in which it can be understood that our crimes against a perfect God are infinite offenses.  I will describe 2.
1)God is perfect (e.g., infinitely wise, good, and powerful).  Therefore, it is infinitely good and right to obey this God and infinitely wrong to disobey Him.  Every act of disobedience against this perfect God is an infinite offense because it is infinitely wrong.  If you wish to argue against this please do so by addressing the argument (as you've been doing) and not saying something like, "the God of the Bible isn't perfect, you're a moron."  We can discuss whether or not the God of the Bible fits this definition of perfect, but the argument is not that the God of the Bible is perfect, but that it is infinitely wrong to disobey a God that is perfect. 
2)God is perfect and therefore infinitely worthy of honor.  If it is somewhat wrong to dishonor someone who is somewhat worthy of honor then it is infinitely wrong to dishonor someone who is worthy of infinite honor.  Again, we are only talking about what is right and wrong, so the typical response of "a God who needs to be honored by His creation isn't perfect" does NOT refute this argument in any way.  I am not making any claims about what this God wants or needs, I am only saying that it is infinitely wrong to not honor Him and that disobeying this God is not honoring Him.

I didn't see where you proved that punishing someone demonstrated a flaw in the one doing the punishing.  All I saw was a demonstration that a perfect God would have no need to punish Himself.  I certainly agree with that, but I don't think that was what you were trying to prove.

I find it interesting that you seem to think that the problem is a lack of wisdom or knowledge in criminals.  This argument only holds water if you can say that you've never done what you KNEW was wrong.  The issue isn't a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of goodness.  We knew that certain things were wrong before we did them, but we did them anyway because we found it more pleasurable for ourselves than doing what was right.  This is irrefutable, but you do not wish to look at things in this way because of where it leads. 

I'd have to ask what you mean by "all-loving."  Do you mean that this perfect God would express love to everyone by giving them what they want?  Obviously, this is impossible, since many people desire the suffering of others, who do not wish to suffer. 

You objected to hell not allowing people to return to society and it being only torture.  I guess then that you'd say that a person should never receive a life sentence for any crimes that they commit in this world.  No matter how heinous a person's crimes are you would say that they should only be taken out of society for a short time to "learn" that the thing that they already knew was wrong was wrong, right?  And to give someone a life sentence for the most heinous crimes (like chaining some people to the back of a pickup truck and dragging them until they're dead while yelling racist slurs at them) would not be justice, but rather cruelty, right? 

Your final point about free will is quite astute.  You have a better understanding of this than most people I've conversed with.  You are correct in many ways here.  Yes, God did choose to create people who would freely choose to do what they knew was wrong.  Without having people who would choose to act in such a way there would be no way for God to show His mercy since there is no need for mercy where there is no crime.  So God offers His mercy to all.  And yes, He even created people who would freely choose to reject His mercy to show how much He loves what is good and right by demonstrating His perfect hatred for wrongdoing by punishing those who do wrong and refuse His mercy.  That likely repulses you, but if God is perfect and has a perfect hatred for wrongdoing it is right for that hatred (along with all of His attributes) to be demonstrated.     

[facebook164]

Usually theologians make up a list of impossible adjectives, and call that "God".  But that is a problem, because G-d makes theologians, theologians don't make G-d.

And you add another unknown:"G-d". Why?

[Hijiri Byakuren]

And you add another unknown:"G-d". Why?

In some traditions, "G-d" is used to censor God's name so as not to accidentally take his name in vain.

[facebook164]

In some traditions, "G-d" is used to censor God's name so as not to accidentally take his name in vain.

Ok. So he diesnt even want to give us his identification of the unkown entity. He refers too... Talk about being ridicously vague.

[Mr.Obvious]

In some traditions, "G-d" is used to censor God's name so as not to accidentally take his name in vain.

That strikes me personally as odd. It's like writing 'f*ck' instead of 'fuck'. We all know what word is meant. The intent and meer usage of the word is there, what will the blotting of one of its letters achieve? Do you trick the all-knowing g-d by this? And if i refer to him as 'the great motherfucker in the Sky' instead of god, do i avoid breaking this law of his?

[TomFoolery]

No.  And you guessed it--I'm not TomFoolery.  She is much smarter than I. 

Awe, shucks...

I am not perfect, but I can devise a much more effective way to create a place the 'bad' people should go.  Why not create a place where, ---let's say Hitler---would go after death.  How about make Hitler experience from that person's view and feel that person's emotions, every person he harmed in his lifetime?

Hitler is an extreme, polarizing example, but you bring up an interesting idea about who "bad" people are. Everyone can agree that Hitler belongs on the list, but the vast majority of people could probably go either way if there were some way to tally up some kind of cosmic karma.

Think about this: Saddam Hussein promoted education and literacy above almost anything else. Just three years after he became president, Iraq was awarded The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization prize for eradicating illiteracy. Education at all levels was free and he expanded the middle class. He expanded healthcare programs, medicine was so heavily discounted by the government it was damn near free, things like birth control pills were available, and kids were vaccinated door-to-door. When he wasn't busy hiding bodies in soccer fields, Saddam was doing that.

Meanwhile, Martin Luther King, Jr. would sleep with any woman who would have him, and heavily plagiarized much of his material. He was sneaking a cigarettes on the balcony after an extramarital tryst when he was shot. I don't think this makes him a bad man necessarily when all things are considered, but it proves that he was in fact just a man.

That's just two small examples, but it goes to show that people are complex and very rarely are the gods or villains we hold them up to be. So is the notion of what makes a "good" person or a "bad" person. If you rely on the Bible or the Quran to tell you how to be a good person, you're probably getting a lot of mixed messages.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

That strikes me personally as odd. It's like writing 'f*ck' instead of 'fuck'. We all know what word is meant. The intent and meer usage of the word is there, what will the blotting of one of its letters achieve? Do you trick the all-knowing g-d by this? And if i refer to him as 'the great motherfucker in the Sky' instead of god, do i avoid breaking this law of his?

I never claimed it was logical. :P


Secretly a Warsie.

[Baruch]

And you add another unknown:"G-d". Why?

The theological "God" isn't the real "G-d".  If I were not referring to monotheism ... I would have used "gods".  It is tricky to speak of ideas that are different and that implicitly refer to each other ... and in English might be referenced with the same word.

Religious Jews would be using "G-d" as a superstition ... but I am irreligious.  And yes, I could use long phrases rather than short words ... to achieve less ambiguity.

"If you rely on the Bible or the Quran to tell you how to be a good person, you're probably getting a lot of mixed messages." ... Exactly.  Doing this is like driving somewhere, while looking at the old fashioned map, while not looking outside while driving (not checking the map while stationary).  Now today maybe this would be more plausible with a good GPS ... but I think you would still scare everyone if you drove with a good GPS while blacking out your car windows!

[Mike Cl]

Hitler is an extreme, polarizing example, but you bring up an interesting idea about who "bad" people are. Everyone can agree that Hitler belongs on the list, but the vast majority of people could probably go either way if there were some way to tally up some kind of cosmic karma.

Think about this: Saddam Hussein promoted education and literacy above almost anything else. Just three years after he became president, Iraq was awarded The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization prize for eradicating illiteracy. Education at all levels was free and he expanded the middle class. He expanded healthcare programs, medicine was so heavily discounted by the government it was damn near free, things like birth control pills were available, and kids were vaccinated door-to-door. When he wasn't busy hiding bodies in soccer fields, Saddam was doing that.

Meanwhile, Martin Luther King, Jr. would sleep with any woman who would have him, and heavily plagiarized much of his material. He was sneaking a cigarettes on the balcony after an extramarital tryst when he was shot. I don't think this makes him a bad man necessarily when all things are considered, but it proves that he was in fact just a man.

That's just two small examples, but it goes to show that people are complex and very rarely are the gods or villains we hold them up to be. So is the notion of what makes a "good" person or a "bad" person. If you rely on the Bible or the Quran to tell you how to be a good person, you're probably getting a lot of mixed messages.

Those are good points and I agree--what is 'good' can be quite hazy.  My main thrust was to tackle the 'perfect god' thing and how such a being could create a christian hell and still be perfect.  I would suggest that the creation of hell by this being would make it non-perfect with that act alone.  Everywhere you look, this perfect god has created pain and suffering, both physically and emotionally.  The physical nature of this god demands a 'eat or be eaten' type of survival.  One MUST kill to live.  Can't be avoided.  That's perfect????  And then we are to follow a set of rules from the perfect bible or we are threatened with everlasting pain and suffering--after living a scant 100 yrs. or less?  And the bible is far from clear or perfect, so the perfect god could not even get the instruction manual done right.  This god makes Hitler and Stalin look like pikers--raw amateurs.   

I used Hitler precisely because he is so far over on the 'evil scale'.  If I can propose a hell that is actually fair to Hitler and his victims, then why can't a perfect god do it?   

[Baruch]

Theological gods are ridiculous.  And rationalists do count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  Total waste of time for me.  But then I have spent a lifetime trying not to live in my head!

[aitm]

Ok. So he diesnt even want to give us his identification of the unkown entity. He refers too... Talk about being ridicously vague.

Since there are over 300,000 gods being worshipped about the world right now, vague is rather normal. Sometimes it takes pages to find out which imaginary friend one splays themselves too.