What obligates a deity to be omnibenevolent?

[Defendaga]

One of the most common descriptions of God is that it's omnibenevolent, i.e. all-good.

What I'm curious about, is why a God must be omnibenevolent, wouldn't it be more logical and much more simpler to say it's amoral?

[dusk]

Doesn't make for such a enticing god. Missionaries would have a much harder time. Omnibenevolent gods are what the people want.

Among polytheist gods it is very different, those are fairly often described as vicious, evil or simply lack any kind of empathy/care towards the lowlifes that is humans.
People want to be special and loved. You need at least a benevolent god. The Omni comes in with the monotheist god concept.

Of course if you actually believe in a god it is a very reasonable question, which I could not answer.

An honest God is the noblest work of man. - Robert G. Ingersoll

[bluethread]

Doesn't make for such a enticing god. Missionaries would have a much harder time. Omnibenevolent gods are what the people want.

Among polytheist gods it is very different, those are fairly often described as vicious, evil or simply lack any kind of empathy/care towards the lowlifes that is humans.
People want to be special and loved. You need at least a benevolent god. The Omni comes in with the monotheist god concept.

Of course if you actually believe in a god it is a very reasonable question, which I could not answer.

An honest God is the noblest work of man. - Robert G. Ingersoll

There isn't really a problem with Adonai being all good, if it is a definitional term. That is waht Adonai does is good by definition. The problem comes in when one attempts to use another standard. If there is a standard of good that is apart from Adonai, that standard becomes equal to Adonai. This is what I think is being shown in the Euthaphro Dilemma. Are the gods good because they are gods, or are they gods because they are good. This is a dilemma in a pantheistic culture, because such a culture is a matter of balancing equal and opposing deities as in Horus and Ra'. In order to say which one is good in a conflict, one must have a seperate standard to which they are subject. However, in monotheism, there need not be a seperate standard. It is only when one does not like the ways of Adonai that one brings up some independent standard of good, ie. humanism or humanitarianism. These put man at the center of the universe and judges all things based on what is considered best for man. The problem with this is that those who hold these views tend to be the first tro find fault with others for being "selfish".

[dusk]

If it is a definition, why not define Adonai to be evil?
One might just say god is all that is evil. Created a world full of suffering, and we have to work against them to create some bit of nice and good in the wretched world created by this omnimalevolent god. A god who only gave us some bit of freedom and ability to watch us struggle with something to hope for and never to achieve, just for the fun of it.


The problem with "standard becomes equal to Adonai" is that nobody save Adonai really knows that standard. Yet many think they do.
As other men have put it.
Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions. - Blaise Pascal
You’re basically killing each other to see who’s got the better imaginary friend. - Richard Jeni
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg

If we need more arguments than god says so (or defines it as good) the bar is higher and not anything can be proclaimed as good and not just anything as evil or bad. A single person can but the rest will judge it by the weight of its arguments and not by the claimed connection of said person to his/her imaginary friend.

[Dantalion]

Doesn't make for such a enticing god. Missionaries would have a much harder time. Omnibenevolent gods are what the people want.

Among polytheist gods it is very different, those are fairly often described as vicious, evil or simply lack any kind of empathy/care towards the lowlifes that is humans.
People want to be special and loved. You need at least a benevolent god. The Omni comes in with the monotheist god concept.

Of course if you actually believe in a god it is a very reasonable question, which I could not answer.

An honest God is the noblest work of man. - Robert G. Ingersoll

There isn't really a problem with Adonai being all good, if it is a definitional term. That is waht Adonai does is good by definition. The problem comes in when one attempts to use another standard. If there is a standard of good that is apart from Adonai, that standard becomes equal to Adonai. This is what I think is being shown in the Euthaphro Dilemma. Are the gods good because they are gods, or are they gods because they are good. This is a dilemma in a pantheistic culture, because such a culture is a matter of balancing equal and opposing deities as in Horus and Ra'. In order to say which one is good in a conflict, one must have a seperate standard to which they are subject. However, in monotheism, there need not be a seperate standard. It is only when one does not like the ways of Adonai that one brings up some independent standard of good, ie. humanism or humanitarianism. These put man at the center of the universe and judges all things based on what is considered best for man. The problem with this is that those who hold these views tend to be the first tro find fault with others for being "selfish".

ofcourse, anthropomorphic deities are not the result of such 'selfishness' nono.

anyway, glad to see where you stand on Eutyphro

[McCulloch]

Value-judgment theisms:

• Eutheism is the belief that a deity is wholly benevolent.
• Dystheism is the belief that a deity is not wholly good, and is possibly evil.
• Maltheism is the belief that a deity exists, but is wholly malicious.

Humans don't like to believe in malicious or evil gods, so most of our deities are benevolent, particularly the monotheist deities.