2PhiloVoid

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Suppose an intelligent alien--like the Mr. Spock character in Star Trek--visited our planet. He studied our history extensively and observed how humans behave and how our societies operate. He formulated conclusions using strict principles of logic, reason, and cause-an-effect relationships. But he based his conclusions solely on objectively verifiable data, without emotionalism or preconceived notions. He would definitely conclude that many humans believe in a god. But it is totally illogical to believe that this god has an all-benevolent moral nature. The rational conclusion is one of 3 possibilities:

1) God is evil, and deceptive.
2) God is morally dualistic--both benevolent and malevolent.
3) God has no moral nature and is uninvolved.

The only foundation for belief in an all-benevolent god is faith. Faith in scripture and religious tradition.

... :ahah: Ya! I'm sure Spock is the epitome of logic and sound moral judgment for this example, isn't he? You might want to reconsider this analogy being what Spock's track record is....and all. Or did Spock think that at times drastic measures have to be taken in order to deal with drastic human beings?
 
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jayem

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... :ahah: Ya! I'm sure Spock is the epitome of logic and sound moral judgment for this example, isn't he? You might want to reconsider this analogy being what Spock's track record is....and all. Or did Spock think that at times drastic measures have to be taken in order to deal with drastic human beings?

My little thought experiment was intended to introduce an observer who has no familiarity with, or emotional investment in, any religious doctrine. Who formulates an opinion based purely on studying history and watching how events unfold and how human beings behave. Such an observer could not logically conclude that our planet and its inhabitants were the work of an all-knowing, all-benevolent, all-righteous and just, morally perfect creator.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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My little thought experiment was intended to introduce an observer who has no familiarity with, or emotional investment in, any religious doctrine. Who formulates an opinion based purely on studying history and watching how events unfold and how human beings behave. Such an observer could not logically conclude that our planet and its inhabitants were the work of an all-knowing, all-benevolent, all-righteous and just, morally perfect creator.

That might depend on what you mean by "observer" and what that implies about an INTELLIGENT observer. From my vantage point, it sounds like your aliens are ... a little on the light side for some set of entities who could essentially cross either space-time boundaries or dimensional boundaries to travel our way. They're smart enough to do that, BUT HOLD THE PHONE FOLKS, once they got to Earth, they looked down up us and thought, "Daaaaang, now THAT stuff don't make no sense, at all!"

Yeah, somehow, I'm kinda seeing an inconsistency here in attempting to ponder what beings who have 200+ I.Q. points over any person on planet Earth would be able to conclude or not conclude after some time of observing us. So, maybe we should just stick with the fact that we are stuck among ourselves and WE are trying to figure ourselves and our religions out and our politics out and not overdo the hypothetical 'Alien' point of view. And admittedly, from our point of view, it can seem a bit daunting.
 
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jayem

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From my vantage point, it sounds like your aliens are ... a little on the light side for some set of entities who could essentially cross either space-time boundaries or dimensional boundaries to travel our way. They're smart enough to do that, BUT HOLD THE PHONE FOLKS, once they got to Earth, they looked down up us and thought, "Daaaaang, now THAT stuff don't make no sense, at all!"

Yes. You got it. That's my point exactly. The idea of a morally good God makes no sense when you have no preconceived notions, and you observe how the world works.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Yes. You got it. That's my point exactly. The idea of a morally good God makes no sense when you have no preconceived notions, and you observe how the world works.

No, you've missed my point, jayem. We don't actually live in utterly "static fields" of cognitive processing in relation to our respective cultures, despite the ways in which our surrounding cultures might try to hold us back or condition us to avoid thinking outside "the box." Living in a mental void is especially not the case today, so when it comes to figuring out God, there's a bit more complication with simply shrugging our shoulders when we hear about Jesus and then saying, "Oh, who could'a known THAT?"

No, a lot of the decision to run from Christianity is due to the fact that many if not most of us just don't like it or the social consequences that come with its theological framework.
 
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holo

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I don't consider atheism as an answer, in fact I don't think atheism answers many things
Well, that's your problem right there.

As this thread exemplifies, keeping faith in God as both omnipotent and omnibenevolent is, at best, complicated. Of course, one answer might be that God isn't in fact both of those things, and the bible can certainly be interpreted that way. Lots of options, and you'll find Christians having wildly different views on it, and they're pretty much all equally earnest about it.

But there's another possibility. That God simply doesn't exist. Or that the bible simply isn't true. That this whole theodicy deal is a futile and pointless project we'll never figure out, because it's all a fantasy anyway. You say atheism doesn't answer many things. But here's an example of atheism explaining things perfectly. Why is there evil if God is good? Because he doesn't exist. How can God have two mutually exclusive traits? Because he doesn't exist. Why didn't God answer all the children and mothers crying out to him as they and their families were gassed? Because he doesn't exist. Why is it so hard for Christians to agree on exactly who God is and what he wants? Because he doesn't exist. I could go on.

The answer, if you're open to it, is so obvious. Take a hypothetical step out of your bubble of belief, just imagine for a minute that you never believed in any of this to begin with. Wouldn't it seem almost self-evident that these Christian ideas are just the same as, say, some Indian cult with a guru who's supposed to be the incarnation of some deity? Or whatever other religion you happen not to believe.
 
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Sérgio Junior

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Thank you for your well written answer and well thought out, Quid.

Please expand on why free will is avoiding the question? The way I see it, human evil exists solely on account of free will, of choice; and biblically in the Eden narrative that also seems the case.

When I said that free will is one way to avoid the question, its because I find it somewhat problematic to say that free will coexists with a God who is omnibenevolent and omniscient. The problem arises when we see that people with agency have bad thoughts and actions, they conduct and execute their evil thoughts and actions against other people, hurting, torturing and killing because of this free agency that makes many people say that "God must be silent", that "He is totally indifferent" or even that "He doesn't exist". Considering this case of the genocide of Jews and other peoples in the Holocaust and all the tragedies you mentioned in your post, some people say: "Okay, because these individuals are free agents, an omniscient (who saw all this evil happen before the creation) and omnibenivolent God could do nothing about it? Would the will of these people who suffered and begged not to suffer and die be affected because of God's action?", "some people's bad thoughts and behavior were not avoided because of your free will and agency, but why the terrible consequences were not stopped by an omnibenivolent God?", "the idea of free will cannot adequately lead to the conclusion that an omnibenivolent God must endure their evil acts" or "in the Bible era God saved Israel people from Egypt, opened the Red Sea for them to cross, saved Israel from the hand of various enemies regardless of their free will, but only that it did not deliver its chosen people from a brutal slaughter because your free will?". These were some of the arguments I've been hearing over time And they too may raise other arguments similar to those of epicurus Ad Infinitum...

Have you read Dostoeyevsky's Brothers Karamazov?
No, I never read Dostoevsky's works.
 
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Sérgio Junior

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As this thread exemplifies, keeping faith in God as both omnipotent and omnibenevolent is, at best, complicated. Of course, one answer might be that God isn't in fact both of those things, and the bible can certainly be interpreted that way. Lots of options, and you'll find Christians having wildly different views on it, and they're pretty much all equally earnest about it.

But there's another possibility. That God simply doesn't exist. Or that the bible simply isn't true. That this whole theodicy deal is a futile and pointless project we'll never figure out, because it's all a fantasy anyway. You say atheism doesn't answer many things. But here's an example of atheism explaining things perfectly. Why is there evil if God is good? Because he doesn't exist. How can God have two mutually exclusive traits? Because he doesn't exist. Why didn't God answer all the children and mothers crying out to him as they and their families were gassed? Because he doesn't exist. Why is it so hard for Christians to agree on exactly who God is and what he wants? Because he doesn't exist. I could go on.

The answer, if you're open to it, is so obvious. Take a hypothetical step out of your bubble of belief, just imagine for a minute that you never believed in any of this to begin with. Wouldn't it seem almost self-evident that these Christian ideas are just the same as, say, some Indian cult with a guru who's supposed to be the incarnation of some deity? Or whatever other religion you happen not to believe.
I think you are right, it is very complicated and I think it is not possible to believe that God is omnipotent and omnibenivolent only by logic, I as a typical guy of faith think these things are believed through faith (which for an non-theist is an unanswered and totally illogical and incoherent). In fact I don't even know how biblical writers thought about these "Omni question" and I have no idea how they wanted people to interpret these attributes.

These answers are very satisfying answers and explain things, and thar perhaps theodicies may have been futiles and many of these concepts are fantasies, but again, as a guy of faith I can simply cling to such concepts that can be quite fanciful and illusory for some people. Actually I didn't mean that atheism doesn't answer many things, when I answered David Neos I meant that atheism is not enough for a person of faith like me (I'll edit what I wrote in post # 10)

I think I can't imagine myself not believing (although I have already questioned various points of my beliefs for a few years now and are doing this in this OP). I think Christianity shares many ideas and similarities with many religions. I am not a Christian because of my religion is different or not from other religions, but I am a Christian because I have faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, I believe and confess the words of the Apostolic Creed, I know for many people this is a non-answer that doesn't means nothing.

I say to atheists: Don't get me wrong with my answers that you can't understand, because they are really ilogical.
 
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Sérgio Junior

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Quid est Veritas?

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Let’s keep it simple. My point is that if God (and I’m specifically referring to the Abrahamic God) was evil and deceptive, the world could look exactly as it does now. Other than faith, there is no way to know God’s moral nature. Or if God even has a moral nature.
I disagree. As I said in the thread above, the world seems mostly good to me. An evil or deceptive creator could make a far worse one. I feel really sorry for you, if you conceive of life as endless torture or so.

Perhaps Leibnitz is ultimately right, and this world is the best of all possible worlds - though he of course backs up his reasoning by assuming many of the precepts of Christianity. Regardless, this world is hardly the product of evil or deception - I could be tortured daily, for instance, with no respite; or given the tiniest respite to long for during subsequent torture. You'll need to back up this claim significantly.

Further, "other than faith we can't know God's moral nature"? This is another statement you seem to be taking axiomatically. Historically, the prevailing view is that we can observe Natural Law, a moral order independant of that prevailing societally (which research in infants has backed up), from which God's 'moral nature' can be seen as its source. Sure, you need faith to believe in God, but thereafter Morality follows deductively. It isn't as if there is a standard above God by which He was measured, but God is considered the measure of morality - how well we can perceive this, is another and controversial question. I mean, have you ever heard of Karl Barth or the Calvinist tendency to think that God's justice need not even appear just to us? It is hardly "keeping it simple" to blithlely make such controversial, and complex and much argued, statements as this one, and take it as a given. You would need to show your work.
 
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Quid est Veritas?

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Thank you for your well written answer and well thought out, Quid.



When I said that free will is one way to avoid the question, its because I find it somewhat problematic to say that free will coexists with a God who is omnibenevolent and omniscient. The problem arises when we see that people with agency have bad thoughts and actions, they conduct and execute their evil thoughts and actions against other people, hurting, torturing and killing because of this free agency that makes many people say that "God must be silent", that "He is totally indifferent" or even that "He doesn't exist". Considering this case of the genocide of Jews and other peoples in the Holocaust and all the tragedies you mentioned in your post, some people say: "Okay, because these individuals are free agents, an omniscient (who saw all this evil happen before the creation) and omnibenivolent God could do nothing about it? Would the will of these people who suffered and begged not to suffer and die be affected because of God's action?", "some people's bad thoughts and behavior were not avoided because of your free will and agency, but why the terrible consequences were not stopped by an omnibenivolent God?", "the idea of free will cannot adequately lead to the conclusion that an omnibenivolent God must endure their evil acts" or "in the Bible era God saved Israel people from Egypt, opened the Red Sea for them to cross, saved Israel from the hand of various enemies regardless of their free will, but only that it did not deliver its chosen people from a brutal slaughter because your free will?". These were some of the arguments I've been hearing over time And they too may raise other arguments similar to those of epicurus Ad Infinitum...


No, I never read Dostoevsky's works.
Okay, let us think for a moment: If the Nazis hadn't taken over, who would rule Germany? In 1918 as the house of Hohenzollern crumbled, Communists took over vast swathes of Germany, such as the entirety of Bavaria. The Wehmahr Republic was an unstable affair, and if not the Nazis, the Commies are a good bet. Communist regimes in Russia and China killed far more people, and were far longer lasting. In Cambodhia they killed a larger percentage of the populace.

What if Germany and the Soviet Union stood together against the rest? WWII was a close run thing as is, but I am not sure a German-Russian Pact might not have won. So Communism expands, what Great Leaps Forward, or Holodomors, or Purges, it might not have done? How much less would our material civilisation not have been to boot?

As this hypothetical makes plain, we don't know the consequences of events. We think we can envision a better world, but if you pull a string at one end, it might unravel the cloth somewhere else. Essentially this is a paraphrase of Leibnitz again, but there really is no objective way of determining if it is even possible to have a better world than our own - while still maintaining our levels of agency. Even something that seems an obvious good, such as not allowing the Nazis to come to power, might in the long run have had far worse sequelae.

This is the danger of hypotheticals and supposition. We simply don't know, and thinking it could have been better somehow, is merely a complete guess - not even an educated one, really. So rather look at what we can all agree on - what currently Is, or what has been (though of course mediated by the prism of our intellectual frameworks, and the biases of historians). As I noted before, I can't watch my son toddling about, or feel the sunshine on my skin, and not conclude "that it is Good". Others have far worse lives surely, but certainly the balance is far more toward what we conceive as Good rather than ill. I don't have the ability to take the cosmic view, but my subjective view and reading of history, supports the view of Goodness lying below the surface. We name Wars, we seldom name Peace - in general people live their lives contentedly for the most part, though there might be pestilence and war and famine about. Evil is the exception rather than the rule - no matter if we see Naturalistic Materialists trying to excuse altruism and goodness on fallacies of motive; or those that anthropomorphise Nature red in tooth and claw, as if this is somehow evil.

The Nazis were bad, but that doesn't suddenly mean we all are, or that the world is therefore indifferent. The Allies also did terrible things, or The Vietnamese Communists were also bad, but better than the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge they respectively drove out. To assume a better world maintaining our levels of agency is a possibility, remains a shot in the dark.
 
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Quid est Veritas?

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Well, that's your problem right there.

As this thread exemplifies, keeping faith in God as both omnipotent and omnibenevolent is, at best, complicated. Of course, one answer might be that God isn't in fact both of those things, and the bible can certainly be interpreted that way. Lots of options, and you'll find Christians having wildly different views on it, and they're pretty much all equally earnest about it.

But there's another possibility. That God simply doesn't exist. Or that the bible simply isn't true. That this whole theodicy deal is a futile and pointless project we'll never figure out, because it's all a fantasy anyway. You say atheism doesn't answer many things. But here's an example of atheism explaining things perfectly. Why is there evil if God is good? Because he doesn't exist. How can God have two mutually exclusive traits? Because he doesn't exist. Why didn't God answer all the children and mothers crying out to him as they and their families were gassed? Because he doesn't exist. Why is it so hard for Christians to agree on exactly who God is and what he wants? Because he doesn't exist. I could go on.

The answer, if you're open to it, is so obvious. Take a hypothetical step out of your bubble of belief, just imagine for a minute that you never believed in any of this to begin with. Wouldn't it seem almost self-evident that these Christian ideas are just the same as, say, some Indian cult with a guru who's supposed to be the incarnation of some deity? Or whatever other religion you happen not to believe.
Pretending a problem does not exist is not answering it. Or have young earth creationists solved all the problems in evolutionary biology?

We look at antecedent factors. Does evil exist? Is one thing worse than another? A robust and coherent Atheism has to affirm no. It has to assume morality an ascribed value, either socially, or in an amalgam of social, developmental and instinctual manner or evolutionarily. Thus we reach ideas like a Will to Power, creating your own morality, or such ideas of Nietschze; or alternately have to assume a rigid Determinism than obliterates agency. Regardless, you can't then condemn another act as wrong on any stronger grounds than merely my say so. But most people concur that moral options exists; that it is better to feed a baby than to bash its head in.

Removing the problem of Evil by removing God, merely opens up a whole different series of problems, and assumes concepts such as amorality that are inconsistent with human experience - empiric or otherwise.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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I wonder if maybe other fellow Christians and brothers like @2PhiloVoid, @hedrick, @zippy2006 , and people from my religious tradition like @ViaCrucis , and other theists like @Silmarien could say anything about this OP??

Hello Sérgio,

It's been a long time brother. To tell you the truth, even though I often like to address issues that lean toward the edgy or upsetting side, this specific issue isn't one one them, and I usually refrain from doing so because politics and sensitivities are what they are. Besides, I'm sure that folks not only wouldn't really want to hear my answer, but would be uncomfortable with the answer I'd give.

So, I'll just leave you with this thought for the moment: God is Sovereign and Holy, and human sensitivities and choices usually don't align with that Sovereignty and Holiness. It's a painful truth to contemplate.
 
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royal priest

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To assume a better world maintaining our levels of agency is a possibility, remains a shot in the dark.
Bear in mind that this world will become a place wherein dwells righteousness. (2 Peter 3:13). Although it will be consummated in the new earth, Christ is building His kingdom here and now in the very midst of the curse and choas of this present evil age. In this context, God is demonstrating that His kingdom is not built by the might or power of man, by but His Spirit. (Zechariah 4:6-10)
Therefore, let us not despise the day of small things, for this is all according to the plan and purpose of our most holy and inscrutable God.
 
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hedrick

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I wonder if maybe other fellow Christians and brothers like @2PhiloVoid, @hedrick, @zippy2006 , and people from my religious tradition like @ViaCrucis , and other theists like @Silmarien could say anything about this OP??
I don't think our tradition envisions God as controlling what goes on at a detailed level. He has goals, and he will accomplish them in the long run, but that doesn't mean that he plans everything that happens. This isn't so much a rejection of omnipotence as skepticism about the concept of God on which the concept of omnipotence is implicitly based: God as an agent just like humans except bigger and better.

Remember that God's way of dealing with sin wasn't what you'd expect from a typical omnipotent ruler: It was the cross.

Of course mainline churches such as mine (PCUSA) and the ELCA have a mix of theologies. I think my response speaks for distinctively PCUSA theologians, but there are plenty of more traditional people in our churches. Indeed a substantial number of our pastors hold fairly traditional Calvinist theology.
 
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jayem

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I disagree. As I said in the thread above, the world seems mostly good to me. An evil or deceptive creator could make a far worse one. I feel really sorry for you, if you conceive of life as endless torture or so.

Consider this as another thought experiment. An evil and deceptive God would allow love, kindness, happiness, and answered prayers. If everything in life was unrelieved misery, we wouldn’t know anything different. Such a God could have posed Jesus as the redeemer of sin and provider of eternal life. Which would give us hope and keep us as good, submissive sheep while God afflicts us with torment. But it’s a fraud—all part of a deceit to fool us and disguise his true nature. I know a believer would call this blasphemous (and depressing.) But it’s an experiment. Why couldn’t the world look exactly as we see it if God was evil and deceptive? Other than faith, how can you know God’s moral nature. (If God even exists and has any moral nature.)

Edited to add: Honestly, I’m an upbeat person. I’ve had quite a happy and stress-free life. If there is a God, for some reason he’s been very good to this non-believer. :oldthumbsup:
 
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Quid est Veritas?

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Consider this as another thought experiment. An evil and deceptive God would allow love, kindness, happiness, and answered prayers. If everything in life was unrelieved misery, we wouldn’t know anything different. Such a God could have posed Jesus as the redeemer of sin and provider of eternal life. Which would give us hope and keep us as good, submissive sheep while God afflicts us with torment. But it’s a fraud—all part of a deceit to fool us and disguise his true nature. I know a believer would call this blasphemous (and depressing.) But it’s an experiment. Why couldn’t the world look exactly as we see it if God was evil and deceptive? Other than faith, how can you know God’s moral nature?

And honestly, I’m an upbeat person. I’ve had quite a happy and generally stress-free life. If there is a God, for some reason he’s been very good to this non-believer. :oldthumbsup:
I don't consider it more blasphemous than silly. Thought experiment is far too grand a term, rather than Conspiracy Theory. As I said, the world is not mostly torment, but the reverse. It takes a lot of tinfoil and special pleading to assume this, and again, what is moral is defined from God - so if you are speaking about an Abrahamic God, then an 'evil god' is a contradiction in terms, as you need to posit a level beyond to derive your moral valence from, which would then be the Abrahamic God and so on.

Anyway, I explained one traditional way of ascertaining the moral nature of God above. Regardless, you are making the claim it has to be only on faith, so the onus rests on you to show your reasoning, beyond just trying to state it axiomatically.
 
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Carl Emerson

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Forgive me for presuming to enter into dialogue at your level but isn't the fact of the resurrection a matter that demands attention and eclipses all doubts about whether a God is in supreme control and ultimate judge of good and evil? Surely we have overrated human suffering in the light of this outcome.
 
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Silmarien

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I wonder if maybe other fellow Christians and brothers like @2PhiloVoid, @hedrick, @zippy2006 , and people from my religious tradition like @ViaCrucis , and other theists like @Silmarien could say anything about this OP??

I would start by seconding Quid's recommendation and saying that you ought to read The Brothers Karamazov. I think it's the best formulation of the Problem of Evil out there, and is definitely worth reading. (An easier read would be David Bentley Hart's The Doors of the Sea, which is similarly themed.)

I've always been more troubled by the problem of natural evil than human evil, probably because Dostoevsky made a serious impression upon me. The Holocaust was not a hurricane, the current refugee crisis is not a drought--we need to look at these sorts of events through the lens of corporate sin and recognize that we are reaping the results of what we sow. If people were truly selfless, could genuinely love their neighbor like themselves, then the world would look very different. We wouldn't flip out at the thought of wealth redistribution or turn a blind eye to the genocides that are still taking place.

I don't have a problem reconciling human evil with a benevolent God because we are the ones doing it. I also don't think you should view these sorts of issues outside of the larger Christian context, since a lot of it is transformed by the eschatological promise of future world where everything has been redeemed. This world is fallen, and the Incarnation presents a taste of what God intends to do with it, but for the moment it remains fallen. I think the only real question for theodicy is whether any future perfection can truly justify present suffering, but I don't think we have the information necessary to make that judgement at present.

All my pretensions of being a generic theist crashed and burned because of the Problem of Evil, because this is really a paradox that only exists in the Christian context. Christianity transformed the ancient world and introduced a new interpretation of justice that really strikes me as unique, and I think that the world is a significantly better place than it used to be because of it. So a more interesting question for me than "can God be just in a world with this much injustice?" would be "can slavery be unjust in a world without a just God?" I would say no, so I see the reality of divine justice simply in the steady improvement in our moral understanding over the past 2000 years. We are conforming to God's will, even if sometimes it's only by recognizing after the fact just how badly we messed up.
 
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jayem

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I don't consider it more blasphemous than silly. Thought experiment is far too grand a term, rather than Conspiracy Theory. As I said, the world is not mostly torment, but the reverse.

That argument is quite anemic. An evil and deceptive god could allow any ratio of contentment to suffering he wishes. Life is definitely better now than it once was. But that's largely a function of technology. In fact, I'll go Tom Hobbes one better. For the bulk of human history--even in what passed for a law-abiding society--life for most people was poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

It takes a lot of tinfoil and special pleading to assume this, and again, what is moral is defined from God - so if you are speaking about an Abrahamic God, then an 'evil god' is a contradiction in terms, as you need to posit a level beyond to derive your moral valence from, which would then be the Abrahamic God and so on.

Aren't you being axiomatic? You're claiming that God is the very essence and definition of moral perfection. But if a god exists as an independent entity, asserting he is inherently good does not make him so. Of course, you're entitled to your beliefs. But you, and most Christian believers are so invested in the idea of a benevolent god that any other cannot even be imagined.

Anyway, I explained one traditional way of ascertaining the moral nature of God above. Regardless, you are making the claim it has to be only on faith, so the onus rests on you to show your reasoning, beyond just trying to state it axiomatically.

The existence of morality is easily explained as an evolutionary adaption to living in a society. I'm not claiming that God is evil. Personally, I don't believe any kind of supernatural god exists. My point is simply that if God exists, and has a moral nature, it can't be determined by what we observe.
 
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