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

[Baruch]

Who you think you are, often isn't what others think you are ... or what you really are.  But then forums are good for this exploration ;-)

[GSOgymrat]

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!

When I read questions like the OP's I can't reply with any confidence because it makes assumptions I don't agree with and is from a perspective I don't share.

"If a perfect God exists do you think that God would send you to a place like hell (i.e., punish you) or a place like heaven (i.e., reward you) based on the way you've lived your life?" - No, because a perfect God wouldn't reward or punish humans for being what they are.

"If you were a tree, what would be your favorite color?" - Red or blue, because those colors are used for photosynthesis and would make me a happy little tree.

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" - All of them.

I'm equally confident with all those responses.

[peacewithoutgod]

Theological gods are ridiculous.  And rationalists do count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

That's highly debatable with people who don't believe in angels. If you have a theory that atoms or quantum particles are really angels, you cannot rationalize that in any way.
  :25:

But then I have spent a lifetime trying not to live in my head! 

.................

[Solomon Zorn]

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.

Child dies from cancer. Who was God displeased with: the child or the parents?

My understanding of perfect is to always do what is right.

How do you know what God thinks is right? Is he telling you?

That means that if it is right for someone to be punished for a gazillion billion years then a perfect God would punish them for exactly that much.

How would you know if that wasn't right? Would he have to tell you?

I'm curious what you think perfect means.

Flawless.

Are you implying that the size of a person determines how much evil they can commit? 

It depends: were they picking up sticks on the Sabbath, or were they "defilers of mankind with themselves?"

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Child dies from cancer. Who was God displeased with: the child or the parents?

In Christian theology, the kid is probably going to heaven anyway, so they'd likely see it as God's version of CPS.

[Baruch]

In Christian theology, the kid is probably going to heaven anyway, so they'd likely see it as God's version of CPS.

CPS?

In the story of the man blind from birth, neither he nor his parents had sinned ... but the curing of blindness is for the glory of G-d.  Of course we forget about the original infliction of blindness from birth, and all those who are not cured.  Christian theology is something other than the NT.  Though Paul pretty much agrees with the Book of Job ... G-d is an all powerful demon, who does whatever G-d wants ... uses people like clay pots.  This would include the idea us moderns forget about .. the chamber pot.  To Paul, if G-d wants to use you as a chamber pot ... than just be the best pot-ty you can be ... or STFU.

[bfiddy100]

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. 

I already made the point that doing something infinitely wrong does deserve infinite punishment, so I won't go through that again.  What you're arguing for is actually precisely what hell is.  The only thing you're failing to see, however, is that the person your crimes are really against is God.  So you must experience from God's perspective how He feels about what you did if we carry out your proposal.  Since we are considering a perfect God, His love for what is good and right must be infinite.  If it could be any greater than it is then we wouldn't be talking about a perfect God.  Now then, if His love for what is good and right is infinite then His hatred for what is wrong must be infinite.  That means God hates all of the things that you've done that you knew were wrong infinitely.  Therefore, your punishment (which is what you've recommended) is to have done to you what you hate infinitely.  However, you're a finite being who can't hate anything infinitely and so you must experience what you hate forever.  Unless, of course, this God was also infinitely kind and loving and would send Someone to suffer that punishment on your behalf.   

[bfiddy100]

When I read questions like the OP's I can't reply with any confidence because it makes assumptions I don't agree with and is from a perspective I don't share.

"If a perfect God exists do you think that God would send you to a place like hell (i.e., punish you) or a place like heaven (i.e., reward you) based on the way you've lived your life?" - No, because a perfect God wouldn't reward or punish humans for being what they are.

"If you were a tree, what would be your favorite color?" - Red or blue, because those colors are used for photosynthesis and would make me a happy little tree.

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" - All of them.

I'm equally confident with all those responses.

That seems like a clever response, until you think about it for a moment.  So you're saying that a perfect God wouldn't be pleased or displeased by the choices that humans make, right?  What would you think of a person that reacted the same way to someone raping a child as they did to a person giving a hungry child something to eat?  I would say such a person is terribly evil.  But you're saying that a perfect God would act this way.  You're saying that a perfect God would be amoral.   

[Baruch]

What I am saying is that G-d is real ... but amoral.  Not moral, not immoral.  The Bible ethics are a crock of night soil.  A perfect G-d would not create humans in the first place, particularly if G-d is also omniscient.  But clearly G-d is not omniscient in Genesis, and not even intelligent.  And in the incident with Noah is clearly a genocidal maniac.

So for me, a rhetorical god, isn't worth talking about.  A real G-d is, but empirically this is an exercise in imperfection and amorality.  The ideas of omnipresence and  omniscience, eternity and immortality, omnipotence ... were Greek philosophical ideas drug into Church dogma and doctrine.  They don't exist in the Bible ... just in the twisted imaginations of theologians.

As far as how G-d feels, I don't know, G-d hasn't told me.  But if G-d is like me, then G-d is probably pretty depressed and lots of other not nice mental conditions.  As far as G-d the judge goes ... G-d can kiss my ass.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

What I am saying is that G-d is real ... but amoral.  Not moral, not immoral.

I've always figured that if God did exist, he'd have to be akin to someone playing a universe simulator in order to explain some of the shit that happens on his watch.

[Atheon]

If god exists and he were perfect, that would make him perfectly intelligent, logical, able and compassionate. But we have ISIS, Nazis and Republicans here, which contradicts all that.

[Baruch]

If god exists and he were perfect, that would make him perfectly intelligent, logical, able and compassionate. But we have ISIS, Nazis and Republicans here, which contradicts all that.

G-d is just letting the lab mice run around free, except when a Darwinian even occurs ... that is "maze meets cheese".

[Mike Cl]

I already made the point that doing something infinitely wrong does deserve infinite punishment, so I won't go through that again.  What you're arguing for is actually precisely what hell is.  The only thing you're failing to see, however, is that the person your crimes are really against is God.  So you must experience from God's perspective how He feels about what you did if we carry out your proposal.  Since we are considering a perfect God, His love for what is good and right must be infinite.  If it could be any greater than it is then we wouldn't be talking about a perfect God.  Now then, if His love for what is good and right is infinite then His hatred for what is wrong must be infinite.  That means God hates all of the things that you've done that you knew were wrong infinitely.  Therefore, your punishment (which is what you've recommended) is to have done to you what you hate infinitely.  However, you're a finite being who can't hate anything infinitely and so you must experience what you hate forever.  Unless, of course, this God was also infinitely kind and loving and would send Someone to suffer that punishment on your behalf.

No!  What you fail to see in your infinite willful blindness and ignorance is that you are worshiping something that does not and cannot exist.  But you refuse to even think that.  You even refuse to think, for what you do is believe.  And that lets you off the hook form the thinking part.  You and reasons, facts and thinking are things you don't want to consider.  You buy into a fairy land of absurd beings and propositions.  But you buy into it hook, line and sinker.  That way you don't have to reason and think--just believe.  It is soooooo much easier that way.  I do pity you.

[Mike Cl]

That seems like a clever response, until you think about it for a moment.  So you're saying that a perfect God wouldn't be pleased or displeased by the choices that humans make, right?  What would you think of a person that reacted the same way to someone raping a child as they did to a person giving a hungry child something to eat?  I would say such a person is terribly evil.  But you're saying that a perfect God would act this way.  You're saying that a perfect God would be amoral.   

I hate to break this to you, but your cartoon god and his cartoon creation is the picture perfect poster child for 'amoral'.  What a blind fool you are!!!!

[stromboli]

So why would a perfect entity need to be worshiped in the first place? A god that can create every conceivable condition and situation created one where a chaotic and largely destructive, short term entity (us) live under a set of conditions that are largely contradictory and honestly don't seem to have any real long term goals at all? Short term life-die- got to heaven, exist eternally yada yada. Sounds pointless to me. Don't personally see a master plan in that.

Or else god doesn't exist and we invented him. Makes way more sense.