Consider this. In making water as necessary for life, God could have ensured water is abundant and all clean. Did God bother to do this? No:

The World Health Organization says that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world. Most of the victims are young children, the vast majority of whom die of illnesses caused by organisms that thrive in water sources contaminated by raw sewage.

A report published recently in the medical journal The Lancet concluded that poor water sanitation and a lack of safe drinking water take a greater human toll than war, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction combined.

According to an assessment commissioned by the United Nations, 4,000 children die each day as a result of diseases caused by ingestion of filthy water. The report says four out of every 10 people in the world, particularly those in Africa and Asia, do not have clean water to drink. see https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-03-17-voa34-67381152/274768.html

But, what if it would have been too difficult for God to make available lots of clean water? This doesn’t help, since surely God could have created a world without earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, childhood cancer, etc.

We often hear that God is to be thanked for all the good things in life, but never blamed for any of the bad stuff. This is not how Justice works. If God is not Evil, but merely Indifferent, how would we hold such an absentee landlord accountable if He was a human? According to the law:

In United States law, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is a type of murder where an individual acts with a “depraved indifference” to human life and where such act results in a death, despite that individual not explicitly intending to kill. In a depraved-heart murder, defendants commit an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to a person. If the risk of death or bodily harm is great enough, ignoring it demonstrates a “depraved indifference” to human life and the resulting death is considered to have been committed with malice aforethought. In some states, depraved-heart killings constitute second-degree murder, while in others, the act would be charged with “wanton murder,” varying degrees of manslaughter, or third-degree murder. (Wiki)

It’s amazing how people respond to God in a way utterly foreign to how they would treat a human, such as hoping Jesus will come back and be a political dictator, or getting promoted to heaven for the special privilege of praising and feeding God’s ego constantly for all eternity!

It’s clear to every padawan that some things are wrong.  For instance, it is wrong to steal from your parent’s wallet.  Now, this seems to have nothing to do with whether there is a God or not, and yet some religious people say without God there can be no right or wrong.  Why?  They say god is in charge, so things are right or wrong because God says so.  In other words, without God’s stamp of approval/disapproval, on whose authority, for instance, do we know that stealing is objectively wrong?

A long time ago, a thinker named Immanuel Kant explained this very well.  He said we exist in such a way that our minds unconsciously give us the rule that we morally accompany all our actions, unlike lower animals such as dogs who, with the intellect of a two year old, are not morally responsible like we are.  If the dog chews up the couch, the dog is not evil, because it doesn’t know any better.  This is also true of certain mentally challenged people. This unconscious rule we follow makes human ethical experiences and judgments possible.   A thinker after Kant named Schelling said it is our ability to be evil that is what is unique in humans among the animals.  We have evolved in such a way that we all have a circle of friends, however small, that we act in a caring way toward because we like them and this is how we would want to be treated.  This is the golden rule, which has been known and applied across place and time throughout human history, regardless of religious or secular context.

So, it’s not God saying so that makes morality possible, but rather the evolutionary combination of reason with the drive toward a circle of friends is eventually realized in the idea of universal human rights.  We are all innately benevolent to some extent because we inherently like friends and understand you treat friends with kindness and are being a better friend if you play the game your friend wants to rather than the one you want to – and you’re being a bad friend if you steal your friend’s girlfriend.

Image Source: https://www.philipchircop.com/post/131380362282/the-golden-rule-talking-about-rules-for-living

Questions:

1. Is it possible for a God to exist and act responsibly if he is not unconsciously obeying the same moral responsibility rule humans obey?
2. Can you make criteria to evaluate that the terrorist airplane attacks on 9’ll were evil, even though many Palestinians at the time felt they were tremendously good?

Down

1 The love of wisdom

2 Searching for reasons/evidence

3 Magic and Monsters

5 Information on which to base belief

7 Believing someone/thing has successfully cast a magic spell

9 Not believing in the supernatural

(*****************sing to the tune of Old MacDonald Had A Farm)

(Verse 1)

Young Darth Harley had some doubts

A-questioning he goes

And with those doubts he questioned commercials

A-questioning he goes

With a “does it work?” here

And a “will it make me happy?” there

Here a doubt, there a doubt

Everywhere an “Ad” doubt

Young Darth Harley had some doubts

A-questioning he goes

(Verse 2)

Young Darth Harley had some doubts

A-questioning he goes

And with those doubts he questioned gods

A-questioning he goes

With “never a Zeus” here

And “never a Thor” there

Here a doubt, there a doubt

Everywhere a “God” doubt

Young Darth Harley had some doubts

A-questioning he goes

CAN YOU WRITE THE NEXT VERSE IN THIS SONG?

Darth Harley was snoring loudly at the back of World Religions class while Li’l Yoda took detailed notes of the class discussion:

Y: “Wake up, Harley!,” Yoda chirped, “You’re going to get in trouble!”

H: “Oops, sorry, what did I miss?”

Y: “Li’l Richard is arguing with the teacher again that Jesus never existed.”

H: “I like Li’l Richard, he’s so random! What passage are they arguing over?”

Y: Mark 4:11-12. “It’s weird:”

¹¹ And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; ¹² in order that

‘they may indeed look, but not perceive,
    and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

H: “What does Ritchie think it means?”

Y: “He says only those who were part of the Christian club knew Jesus was a mythical being who was never on earth, while maybe Mark was trying to trick the people who were not part of the club to think Jesus was a man killed on earth.”

H: “Well, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean that, because the club members wouldn’t be shown to be violent at Jesus’ arrest if they knew all along he was supposed to die.”

Y: So what do you think it means?

H: “It’s interesting, and really a random passage. I think it might have to do with the “guilt by association” of Jesus’s followers who were as guilty as Jesus was in the public eye. Think about the young man in Mark who was seen as guilty as the naked Adam:”

⁵¹ A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, ⁵² but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked. (Mark 14:51-52)

H: “But, in the tomb he was clothed in righteousness in God’s eyes because he followed Jesus who was not really a criminal but rather the holiest of holy men:”

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in white. (Mark 16:5)

** For an example of a scholar arguing Mark may be trying to trick outsiders (not followers) into thinking Jesus was a real person who was killed, see Dr. Richard Carrier, time 20:42 here