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I'm pretty sure this is different enough from the "God Logic" thread to be posted here. If it's not, I guess go ahead and delete it. Basically, Leaff found this quote and it made me think:

<@Leaff> i have a neat little excerpt thing that i want to share right now that you will probably yell at me for but regardless
<@Leaff> Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?
<@zmaxson> i will not yell
<@Leaff> comes from Epicurus, btw
<@Leaff> greek philospher

As a Christian, I naturally have to disagree with anything that says He's not able, but the middle two are still making me think. Basically I guess I just want some input from both sides of the argument as to what you guys think.

Also if anyone has a better idea for the thread name by all means let me know.

EDIT: thanks demonz :)

Thanks, I got it. :)

I don't think that not doing anything about evil necessarily makes someone malevolent. It's like somene standing around and doing nothing while a guy is getting mugged in an alley. I'm not saying it's justified or right in any way but so long as God isn't directly causing the evil (which I suppose is where the debate lay) you can't really lable it as malevolent.

God could have his reasons. This all comes from a very humano-centric point of view. Like we're the center of the universe or some shit. I'm sure he has bigger fish to fry.

For the record, this is called the Riddle of Epicurus (Epicurus was an Ancient Greek philosopher).

As Blizz pointed out, this only shows an incompatibility between omnipotence and omnibenevolence, so this doesn't apply if God is not omnibenevolent (or omnipotent, though I don't understand why a modern human would worship a god who isn't omnipotent). Alternatively, it's debatable whether this could be the case, but God might actually be doing some good that requires people to be hurt but is worth it.

My question when it comes to debates over morality and ethics is, "How does one define 'evil'?"
Once you've done that then we can discuss the ethics and morality of God.

Well, I went to sleep last night and thought about it again this morning before getting online. I pretty much came up with the same thing some of you guys have said (about how just because there is evil doesn't mean He's malevolent). I've seen too many good things in my life to believe that God is malevolent. I think that if there was no evil and everything was good, there would be no reason for existing.

maxson924 wrote:I've seen too many good things in my life to believe that God is malevolent.

Y'know, I wrote a short play once about a civilized island where unfortunate things are invisible. Everyone trusted in the wisdom of the benevolent king because he had only ever appeared to have the public's interest in mind, when in fact they were merely unable to perceive the horrendous evil he was much better known for by the invisible less-privileged.
The point of it was pretty much to talk about the absurdity of believing God to be benevolent because of some naive misunderstanding that the world has more happiness in it than misery.

In all fairness, I am one evil motherfucker, but Jesus loves this shit. Go fig.

Tsukatu wrote:

maxson924 wrote:I've seen too many good things in my life to believe that God is malevolent.

Y'know, I wrote a short play once about a civilized island where unfortunate things are invisible. Everyone trusted in the wisdom of the benevolent king because he had only ever appeared to have the public's interest in mind, when in fact they were merely unable to perceive the horrendous evil he was much better known for by the invisible less-privileged.
The point of it was pretty much to talk about the absurdity of believing God to be benevolent because of some naive misunderstanding that the world has more happiness in it than misery.

Keep in mind that a fairly large portion of that misery is self-inflicted.

maxson924 wrote:

Tsukatu wrote:

maxson924 wrote:I've seen too many good things in my life to believe that God is malevolent.

Y'know, I wrote a short play once about a civilized island where unfortunate things are invisible. Everyone trusted in the wisdom of the benevolent king because he had only ever appeared to have the public's interest in mind, when in fact they were merely unable to perceive the horrendous evil he was much better known for by the invisible less-privileged.
The point of it was pretty much to talk about the absurdity of believing God to be benevolent because of some naive misunderstanding that the world has more happiness in it than misery.

Keep in mind that a fairly large portion of that misery is self-inflicted.

Wwwwhat?
How do you figure?

maxson924 wrote:

Tsukatu wrote:

maxson924 wrote:I've seen too many good things in my life to believe that God is malevolent.

Y'know, I wrote a short play once about a civilized island where unfortunate things are invisible. Everyone trusted in the wisdom of the benevolent king because he had only ever appeared to have the public's interest in mind, when in fact they were merely unable to perceive the horrendous evil he was much better known for by the invisible less-privileged.
The point of it was pretty much to talk about the absurdity of believing God to be benevolent because of some naive misunderstanding that the world has more happiness in it than misery.

Keep in mind that a fairly large portion of that misery is self-inflicted.

Well, all of my happiness is self-inflicted so...

Smörgåsbord wrote:I'm sure he has bigger fish to fry.

If God existed and was in fact omnipotent, you would logically think that he could fry all the "fish" large and small with a wave of his hand.

capt_weasle wrote:I don't think that not doing anything about evil necessarily makes someone malevolent. It's like somene standing around and doing nothing while a guy is getting mugged in an alley. I'm not saying it's justified or right in any way but so long as God isn't directly causing the evil (which I suppose is where the debate lay) you can't really lable it as malevolent.

I think that it is an evil within itself to not help somebody when you have the power to help them. If God is omnipotent he has the power to help everyone but is actively not doing a god damn thing. That is an evil act, therefore God is evil, God does not exist, or God is not omnipotent. If you say God can't be evil and he is omnipotent, then you are saying that he does not exist.

maxson924 wrote:Well, I went to sleep last night and thought about it again this morning before getting online. I pretty much came up with the same thing some of you guys have said (about how just because there is evil doesn't mean He's malevolent). I've seen too many good things in my life to believe that God is malevolent.

Just because you have had a lucky life, does not mean you can speak for those who have not. Look online for a plethora of people who have had or are having terrible lives.

maxson924 wrote:I think that if there was no evil and everything was good, there would be no reason for existing.

That is just stupid. First, tell me the reason for living, then tell me how evil and only evil makes it possible for it to exist.

maxson924 wrote:Keep in mind that a fairly large portion of that misery is self-inflicted.

Are you on drugs? Look at any natural disaster or Africa.

Did I ever say that there wasn't evil in the world? Of course there is. But a lot of the problems that people have can be chalked up to bad choices (again, not all, but some). Take, for example, the high school girl who decides to have unprotected sex at 16. She gets knocked up and has to drop out of school to care for the child. That causes misery for the girl, but that's hardly God's fault; she made her own choice.

Now, look at what the kid's life is going to be like: he will likely have a distant-at-best dad, a struggling mom, and will probably miss out on a lot of the fun things other kids get to do. That's not his fault in the slightest. But it was the mother's choice, not God's. Even though that kid did nothing wrong, God cannot be blamed for that.

If you take out all the misery caused by people's choices (whether their own or others), I think it's very plausible to say that there's more good than evil. If you disagree, that's fine.

maxson924,

How about the recent Haiti disaster? Was that self-inflicted? If God is responsible for this reality He's created and we're talking about the horrible things that happen to innocent humans in it, why are you caught up with peanuts like teen pregnancy?

This is essentially another facet of the omnipotence paradox.

Look at every natural disaster that has ever happened in the history of the world. They all have one thing in common: humanity recovered. I really don't know why God "lets" bad things happen, but I do know that He has never given us something we can't overcome. I don't even /expect/ to understand it, because I'm a mere 18-year-old mortal with a limitation called "the human mind." :p

Forgive me if that post is incoherent or jumbled or whatever; I'm pretty tired at the moment.

Why do you want to know if he exists/if he is good or omnipotent or something? I don't think it matters, if you want to believe all that, well that's just fine just don't try and make believe it to. I'm about 99% sure he is not real, because the Bible has way to many holes in it. The big flood? Why would animals that can swim and animals that float die? His plan wasn't just to destroy most of the things, he wanted everything gone.

Well, since you brought up the big flood:

The Bible states that Noah was to put two of every CLEAN animal on the ark. Basically, anything that isn't Kosher (sp?) for Jews today would be considered unclean. So who says that the animals that could swim/float did die?

Maxson wrote:I really don't know why God "lets" bad things happen, but I do know that He has never given us something we can't overcome.

I think if we're talking about God's benevolence here, "leaving us alive" wouldn't be the standard i'd hold him to.


God, weather? Classic

The Christian God is outside time: that is, he can perceive all things that have happened, are happening, and will happen simultaneously, with an infinite amount of his own "time" to tend to each. Since this God knows all things will happen, and according to Christianity he is omnipotent and can therefore affect all events however he wishes, he is the direct cause of all pain, misery, and unhappiness, including pain etc. which is inflicted on innocent people (e.g. the Holocaust, the Haiti earthquake). If he had wanted these things not to happen, he could have altered events that occurred before them so that the natural flow of time would not lead to them.

The Bible records God as killing about 2.4 million people--including many innocents (children and newborn babies)--and thanks to his alleged omnipotence, he also caused all wars and natural disasters, putting his kill count in the multi-billions. So we can safely assume that not only is God evil, he's probably the evilest sentient being to ever exist.

So, yeah, I do agree with Epicurus.

maxson,

From the point where God's actions confuse you so much that you decide that your brain simply doesn't understand the complexity of His plan, the next logical step forward is to consider the following:
Is it possible for the world to be the way it is, without a God?
Why do natural disasters happen? Because we evolved on a chaotic planet, only a fraction of which is hospitable for us.
Why do people do evil things? Because our prefrontal cortices are too small and our adrenal glands are too big.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Because the only thing watching out for good people is other good people, and no guardian angels or omnipotent beings besides.
Why do God's mannerisms seem to change with time? Because He exists only in the minds of the culture He seems to have influence over, which unsurprisingly leads to God thinking exactly like the humans who believe in Him.
Why has no formal investigation of prayer ever been conclusive? Because no one is listening.

We know where we come from, we have some very good ideas as to how our universe came to be, and any psychologist today can account perfectly for morality, without needing God in the picture. The things we don't know, we happily admit, rather than falling back on myths written by ignorant shepherds thousands of years ago. But the number of unanswered questions about our origins and interpersonal relationships has dwindled rapidly over the last century or two. And in every case, why has the Biblical answer turned into a metaphorical interpretation about something unrelated? Because the Bible was written by clueless shepherds who were taking random guesses about all of it.

Give me any question for which you think religion has the best answer, and I'll show you how it's easily answerable, without any contortions of reason, without a need for God.
And once you understand that God is not necessary to explain this reality, you're in a better position to see how contrived and inconsistent the answers that rely on God's existence really are.

Tsukatu wrote:maxson,

From the point where God's actions confuse you so much that you decide that your brain simply doesn't understand the complexity of His plan, the next logical step forward is to consider the following:
Is it possible for the world to be the way it is, without a God?
Why do natural disasters happen? Because we evolved on a chaotic planet, only a fraction of which is hospitable for us.
Why do people do evil things? Because our prefrontal cortices are too small and our adrenal glands are too big.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Because the only thing watching out for good people is other good people, and no guardian angels or omnipotent beings besides.
Why do God's mannerisms seem to change with time? Because He exists only in the minds of the culture He seems to have influence over, which unsurprisingly leads to God thinking exactly like the humans who believe in Him.
Why has no formal investigation of prayer ever been conclusive? Because no one is listening.

We know where we come from, we have some very good ideas as to how our universe came to be, and any psychologist today can account perfectly for morality, without needing God in the picture. The things we don't know, we happily admit, rather than falling back on myths written by ignorant shepherds thousands of years ago. But the number of unanswered questions about our origins and interpersonal relationships has dwindled rapidly over the last century or two. And in every case, why has the Biblical answer turned into a metaphorical interpretation about something unrelated? Because the Bible was written by clueless shepherds who were taking random guesses about all of it.

Give me any question for which you think religion has the best answer, and I'll show you how it's easily answerable, without any contortions of reason, without a need for God.
And once you understand that God is not necessary to explain this reality, you're in a better position to see how contrived and inconsistent the answers that rely on God's existence really are.

Serious Discussion Post of the Year. When you're good, you're good, Suki.

I'm having a lot of trouble forming my words (I haven't had a real writing class in years), so I'll make my response as simple as possible:

I don't think it's an issue of needing something to be explained without a counter-argument. Humanity's been around for a long fucking time. Each side has had, literally, all the time in the world to formulate answers to questions, so there's never going to be a question from one side that can't be answered by the other side.

I have never, ever stated that Christianity is proven. However, atheism is not a fact, either. If you don't believe in God, I don't blame you one bit.

Again, I'm having trouble forming good sentences. In essence, I'm saying what religion you believe (or none) is really a judgment call.



Also, on a side note:

I've never quite understood that reasoning. You have admitted that your own brain is unreliable, yet you simultaneously rely on it to believe in God. If your brain cannot understand the answers to The Big Questions (e.g. "why does suffering exist?"), then it certainly can't understand the answer to the question of God's existence.

If I believe that God is omniscient, but I also believe that I can understand how He thinks (and I'm clearly not omniscient), wouldn't I be contradicting myself?


Another side note:

(Now, I may be totally wrong about what you mean in your argument. If I am, disregard this part.)

I consider myself to be pretty damn smart compared to the people I know irl. However, in this community, I'm probably not out of the bottom third. Despite my inferior intelligence, I don't think that makes me any less logical or any more wrong, and I don't think my personal intelligence factors into the truth, however poorly I may put my arguments forth.

Tanner wrote:Serious Discussion Post of the Year. When you're good, you're good, Suki.

Why, thank you. But don't worry, I'll inevitably revert to posting something rabid and embarrassing, and probably soon.

maxson wrote:Humanity's been around for a long fucking time. Each side has had, literally, all the time in the world to formulate answers to questions, so there's never going to be a question from one side that can't be answered by the other side.

If I can be facetious for a sec...
Christianity will actually always have an answer to any question you can ask, and it'll be the same one they've been using for thousands of years: a magic man did it. And from my point of view, this means that for any question, Christianity is guaranteed to have the wrong answer.

But more seriously: What draws me to the answers given by science over those given by any flavor of religion or spiritualism is not the fact that an answer is given, but the fact that the answer comes from a process I trust.
If you held a world forum and asked a question like, "how did humans come to be," then answers like "humans transformed out of other animals" and "we were made and placed here by a higher intelligence" would, because they do not show the process for obtaining these answers, be on the same level as any other origin story, such as "the Sun was chasing his little sister, the Moon, and one day they bumped into each other, and the Moon cried tears which became mankind." If you only evaluate the answers based on the content of the answer, without a critical evaluation of how those giving the answers arrived at them, then I am not at all surprised that you might think that accepting one answer being offered over another boils down to personal taste.
If you were to follow up this question with, "and how did you arrive at your answer," you will find that only a tiny fraction of all answers provided by our world's countless cultures and religions are in any way trustworthy. The Theory of Evolution is obviously a prime example of an answer that has its act together, and heck, if we pretend for a moment that Intelligent Design isn't merely Creationism in a cheap tuxedo, it would be among the wheat separated from the chaff. And that chaff will primarily be answers supported only by, "that's what my elders told me," and, "we believe that a magic guy did basically all of the hard stuff."
I don't dismiss the origin story that you accept because I think mine is cooler, or because of some rebellious inclination to oppose any idea with the word "God" in it, but because the origin story you accept is totally unsubstantiated guesswork without a scrap of evidence in its favor, and the one I do believe offers details, within as excruciating a degree as you care to ask, about every step taken toward the answer found, and every one of those steps is rational and consistent with the others. If the origin stories were girls, mine is the one that can hold an interesting conversation. "Beauty without intelligence is a masterpiece painted on a napkin."
...my focus is wandering, but I think I've made my point clear.