Below an atheist video a person called Truebluecanuk said - “if science is so awesome, why can’t it cure cancer?”
I say -
1) If god is so awesome, why did he create it
2) If science can’t cure it, then it seems at the moment to be on par with your equally ineffective god. The main difference being, that science without unlimited powers, is atleast trying
If your theory is that god is trying to teach people compassion by making them care for one another. Then shouldn’t god lead by example. It’s not very compassionate to invent cancer. My father died from it, i saw his suffering, it didn’t seem like the compassionate act of an omnipotent being to create it for him
If on the other hand you say that god didn’t create cancer, it’s a product of man. Then the whole concept of him creating everything falls apart
Either he exists & created everything - in which case he is an evil sadistic being that derives pleasure from witnessing suffering & is not deserving of worship
Or
He exist & is compassionate & didn’t create everything (he left out things that cause suffering like not being able to breath air or being hungry or thirsty or objects with sharp corners)- in which case there must be other creators or gods or beings that made the stuff he forgot & in fact he created very little if not anything because almost everything has the capacity to cause suffering. Thus once again even though as another being we should feel compassion for his failings, he doesn’t in anyway deserve to be worshiped. After all, even I have the ability to stop a woman in the street from being beaten, yet he doesn’t?? Even a dog can protect its owner. That places gods skill set at creation a fair bit lower than that of plants
Or
God doesn’t exist - that no one being is responsible for all of creation. That suffering is just the byproduct of living but as sentient beings aware of this suffering we should develop the empathy to be able to cultivate the motivation to be compassionate enough to strive to reduce suffering in others & help balance the load of suffering (eg. if I eat to much others will have less to eat - this is proven by the simple scientific observation that energy is constant. If one thing consumes more energy then other things will have less, which may lead to their suffering or even their destruction)
Without god we can achieve this by:
1) Scientific observation using our 6 senses.
This is insight meditation - seeing things with all senses open to what they really are. Removing anything be it object or idea or dogma that obscures its true nature
2) Gaining Knowledge. This is mindfulness meditation - understanding why things operate & function as they do
3) Developing empathy - based on the first 2 actions we can identify suffering & compare it with our own & develop the perspective to see & feel things from other perspectives
4) Cultivate compassion - with a full understanding of the first 3 actions we can cultivate the motivation to take action (or non-action) to assist in reducing the suffering in others
5) Share - to not keep our gains for a select chosen few beings but to give it to all. To not wait for a god to take us to a land free from suffering but to share the above tools with everyone so we can create that world for ourselves now. To balance the burden of suffering for all
If god does or doesn’t exist is irrelevant. If we practice the above. Attempting to create a better world is surely a good thing in anyone’s book, regardless of its author. Having said that, I personally fail to conceive of an omnipotent being giving us senses, asking us not to use them & to put us in the bondage of having to hand over all reason, logic & judgement to them & to have to belief in things beyond our 6 senses makes those beings/things redundant but not necessarily non-existent, just that if they are beyond our comprehension then we will only create more suffering in the futile actions of attempting to comprehend them
