I had a really hard time double cruxing this, because I don’t actually feel at all uncertain about the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent god. I realized partway through that I wasn’t doing a good job arguing both sides and stopped there. I’m posting this comment anyway, in case it makes for useful discussion.
You attribute god both benevolence and omnipotence, which I think is extremely difficult to square with the world we inhabit, in which natural disasters kill and injure thousands, in which children are born with debilitating diseases, and good people die young in accidents that were no fault of their own. One can of course come up with a myriad of possible explanations for these observations, but I think they are a sharp departure from what a naive mind would expect to see in a world created by an all-powerful benevolent being. I’m trying to come up with explanations of these that don’t feel completely forced. The best I can come up with is the idea of a divine plan in which the events allow people to fulfill their destiny and become who they are meant to be. Yet, while such might make for good storytelling, I don’t think they actually improve the lives of people these things happen to.
Relatedly, you have the problem of human evil. I think the standard reply is that God gives humans the free will to choose good or evil so that He may judge them. I would contend that free will only produces evil in beings created by God insofar as their creator designed them in such a way that they would often choose to do evil things given the world in which they are placed (e.g. why does God make pedophiles?).
Another consideration is the intense competition that exists in the world between all life forms for limited resources does not approximate what I think one would naively expect of a singular God, but looks much more like multiple opposed forces acting against one another. This would at least seem to favor polytheism over monotheism, but given the simpler explanation of evolution, I think neither is necessary. I think Eliezer made this point better https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pLRogvJLPPg6Mrvg4/an-alien-god.
I had a really hard time double cruxing this, because I don’t actually feel at all uncertain about the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent god. I realized partway through that I wasn’t doing a good job arguing both sides and stopped there. I’m posting this comment anyway, in case it makes for useful discussion.
You attribute god both benevolence and omnipotence, which I think is extremely difficult to square with the world we inhabit, in which natural disasters kill and injure thousands, in which children are born with debilitating diseases, and good people die young in accidents that were no fault of their own. One can of course come up with a myriad of possible explanations for these observations, but I think they are a sharp departure from what a naive mind would expect to see in a world created by an all-powerful benevolent being. I’m trying to come up with explanations of these that don’t feel completely forced. The best I can come up with is the idea of a divine plan in which the events allow people to fulfill their destiny and become who they are meant to be. Yet, while such might make for good storytelling, I don’t think they actually improve the lives of people these things happen to.
Relatedly, you have the problem of human evil. I think the standard reply is that God gives humans the free will to choose good or evil so that He may judge them. I would contend that free will only produces evil in beings created by God insofar as their creator designed them in such a way that they would often choose to do evil things given the world in which they are placed (e.g. why does God make pedophiles?).
Another consideration is the intense competition that exists in the world between all life forms for limited resources does not approximate what I think one would naively expect of a singular God, but looks much more like multiple opposed forces acting against one another. This would at least seem to favor polytheism over monotheism, but given the simpler explanation of evolution, I think neither is necessary. I think Eliezer made this point better https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pLRogvJLPPg6Mrvg4/an-alien-god.