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Problem of Evil

Opethian

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There is no such thing as free will.
There is only Input -> Processing -> Output

Our body does the processing, and the result is only dependant on our body and the input. Souls are a nice imagination, but they don't exist. Therefore, there is no true evil or good, there's only people that were born with the right genes in the right environment, and people that were born with the wrong genes in the wrong environment.
 
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Jamza

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Actually, input - processing - output doesn't work on a quantum level, you have fluctuations; and particles have multiple histories; neither can physics ultimately determine what will happen; due to chaos theory and the uncertainty principle. If even the physical universe is founded on such uncertainty; why can't this uncertainty be interpreted as free will when we scale it up to human behaviour?
 
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TheGMan

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Jamza said:
Actually, input - processing - output doesn't work on a quantum level, you have fluctuations; and particles have multiple histories; neither can physics ultimately determine what will happen; due to chaos theory and the uncertainty principle. If even the physical universe is founded on such uncertainty; why can't this uncertainty be interpreted as free will when we scale it up to human behaviour?

Because such fluctuations are random. It would be like tossing a coin to decide whether you want strawberry ice cream or chocolate ice cream. It doesn't quite add up to our intuitive notion of freedom.
 
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Jamza

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TheGMan said:
Because such fluctuations are random. It would be like tossing a coin to decide whether you want strawberry ice cream or chocolate ice cream. It doesn't quite add up to our intuitive notion of freedom.

Well neither do you experience those fluctuations on such a large scale; all I'm saying is that if an amount of uncertainty is exhibited in science when the traditional thinking was that everything was predictable; why must we assume free will can't exist?
 
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skinner

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Opethian said:
There is no such thing as free will.
There is only Input -> Processing -> Output

Our body does the processing, and the result is only dependant on our body and the input. Souls are a nice imagination, but they don't exist. Therefore, there is no true evil or good, there's only people that were born with the right genes in the right environment, and people that were born with the wrong genes in the wrong environment.

So, you don't believe in evil? Read the newspaper lately?
Really, I feel sorry for you, but given the culture we exist in, I'm not surprised that there are so many who veiw themselves as merely animals walking upright.
Must make for a boring existence, though.
 
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TeddyKGB

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skinner said:
So, you don't believe in evil? Read the newspaper lately?
Really, I feel sorry for you, but given the culture we exist in, I'm not surprised that there are so many who veiw themselves as merely animals walking upright.
Try as I might, I cannot seem to consider myself a "mere" animal.
Must make for a boring existence, though.
Uh huh. When I stopped believing I was a special creation of God, stuff just quit happening around me.
 
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TheGMan

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Jamza said:
Well neither do you experience those fluctuations on such a large scale; all I'm saying is that if an amount of uncertainty is exhibited in science when the traditional thinking was that everything was predictable; why must we assume free will can't exist?

We don't assume it. But it isn't particularly obvious what free will is. If our actions aren't predictable or random - stochastic is probably a better word than random - then what are they? What's left?
 
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b4uris

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TeddyKGB said:
I don't think it presupposes anything. Any means of dealing with evil is necessarily available to an omnipotent being. Creating a less evil world in the first place, for example.

I think it does. The freewill method would be an effective way of dealing evil, especially if the "greater good" explanation is true. If the afterlife is the real goal, then the evil in the world would be like obstacles from which spiritual growth could be derived. Again, this doesn't explain "natural evil", just bad things done by humans.
 
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Opethian

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So, you don't believe in evil? Read the newspaper lately?
Really, I feel sorry for you, but given the culture we exist in, I'm not surprised that there are so many who veiw themselves as merely animals walking upright.
Must make for a boring existence, though.
Sorry to tell you, but even the actions of a serial killer are already set from the moment he is conceived, since the environment he will grow up in is already set, his genetic traits are set, and the path of his life is set. Same for someone who spends his entire life helping others and not caring about himself. You can't consider people like that "evil" or "good", you can only say that the first was born with an unlucky set of genes under unlucky circumstances, and the second with a good set of genes under good circumstances. This has nothing to do with "free will", since there is no such thing. I feel sorry for you, that you lack the capacity to understand this, or the willpower to break free from your nice world where you think you actually did something to achieve the way you are, but in reality, it isn't true. You are just a piece of well-organised dead material, that is capable of communicating with its environment by complex reactions going on in the material it is made of. There's no such thing as a soul, even though it would of course be nice if there were, but there's not. And I am merely an animal with a big brain walking upright, as are you, as is everyone on this planet. Don't be so vain as to say we are special and other organisms aren't. We're all special, but none of us have free will, none of us have souls, we're all just highly organised matter. Get over it...
 
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Jamza

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Nothing is as predictable as that; and even if it were, you could hardly measure it all. All that philosophy seems to suggest is:

1. There are no wrongs. There are just events that happen because of causality.

2. There is no morality. By your logic, a despot is actually a decent person, he or she is controlling lots of other people and providing wealth for him/herself. Well done macro-molecules!

3. No one is suggesting a 'soul' is something atomic, or anything to do with natural laws; of course there will never be proof or disprove of a soul.

To reduce human behavior to something so determined and cold is not very helpful. By your logic even secular things like creative beauty is just another event. I don't think you should feel sorry for spiritual people; I think they're ideologies and values are much more fulfilling than determinism.
 
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Species8472

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The soul is evident. The body is a reflection or portion of the soul, in whose inlets are the fives senses. It is the form of the innerself--the self is the soul. Your essence, like the essence of water is water; and the essence of you is your soul, your self of being.
An essence cannot be created nor destroyed--it was, is--always meant to be.
To be or not to be--that is the question. Am I? I think; therefore I am.
 
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PapaLandShark

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jinkazama said:
5. Natural evils?- you have explain this to me?
Any one care to answer number 5

Since #5 is still in question, in my mind, let me pose you this to consider:

Read through Genesis 1 and mark what is given into Adam's rulership and care. Now with that in mind start at Genesis 3 and read carefully. Pay particular attention from verse 14 on. Who and what is cursed with Adam, Eve, and thier decendants? What conclusions can we draw from this?

The hardships we are under can easily be extended to natural disasters and the curse Adam and Eve brought down on themselves, and thier decendants, through thier disobediance to God.

But I will also pose another question for those who will cry "senseless deaths!". Senseless in what regard? You cannot escape, or ignore, in Scripture that God knows all that has happened, is happening, will happen. In regards to us, man, we often loose sight of this fact when concentrating on the temporary.

Which brings us to the eternal and my last question: Do you think that God could possibly loose track of those whom He foreordained and elected to be His?
 
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Eudaimonist

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Jamza said:
To reduce human behavior to something so determined and cold is not very helpful. By your logic even secular things like creative beauty is just another event. I don't think you should feel sorry for spiritual people; I think they're ideologies and values are much more fulfilling than determinism.

Agreed. Of course, not all atheists are determinists or reductive materialists.
 
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Opethian

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Nothing is as predictable as that; and even if it were, you could hardly measure it all. All that philosophy seems to suggest is:

1. There are no wrongs. There are just events that happen because of causality.

2. There is no morality. By your logic, a despot is actually a decent person, he or she is controlling lots of other people and providing wealth for him/herself. Well done macro-molecules!

3. No one is suggesting a 'soul' is something atomic, or anything to do with natural laws; of course there will never be proof or disprove of a soul.

To reduce human behavior to something so determined and cold is not very helpful. By your logic even secular things like creative beauty is just another event. I don't think you should feel sorry for spiritual people; I think they're ideologies and values are much more fulfilling than determinism.
It is helpful, because it is the only thing that is real. Obviously, it's not as fun as to think that there are in fact spiritual things and gods and souls and whatnot. But everything we know until now leads to my argument. All cases of so called spiritual events or processes that have been examined up till now have been proven to have a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation. I'm not saying a despot is a good person, I'm only saying that there is no sort of free will that caused him to become what he is. It also doesn't mean that you shouldn't enjoy things that seem special to you because of chemical reactions in your body. Just because you understand how they function, doesn't mean that you can't enjoy them anymore.

Make the two into one: one body and soul.

One body, no soul. A soul is just an imagination, one that seeks to explain how the rational part of the body works without an understanding of the body.
 
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skinner

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Opethian said:
Sorry to tell you, but even the actions of a serial killer are already set from the moment he is conceived, since the environment he will grow up in is already set, his genetic traits are set, and the path of his life is set. Same for someone who spends his entire life helping others and not caring about himself. You can't consider people like that "evil" or "good", you can only say that the first was born with an unlucky set of genes under unlucky circumstances, and the second with a good set of genes under good circumstances. This has nothing to do with "free will", since there is no such thing. I feel sorry for you, that you lack the capacity to understand this, or the willpower to break free from your nice world where you think you actually did something to achieve the way you are, but in reality, it isn't true....

Wrong. When I get up in the morning, I am faced with a choice. I can do nothing productive and earn the results. (nothing) Or I can choose to do my chosen work and reap the satisfaction and the means to feed my family. This is not set in my genes, it's free will.
Maybe if I believed the evolution garbage that is taught in our colleges I could begin to understand why you think as you do. I guess I was "lucky" in that I grew up in a generation who was taught that if you want to acheive something, it requires effort. Each and every one of us has the genes that could create a serial killer or a saint. It is simply a matter of the choices that we make every day that determines which we will become.
Break free from my nice world? To find what? A meaningless existance, where everything is relivative and truth does not exist? No thanks.


Opethian said:
You are just a piece of well-organised dead material, that is capable of communicating with its environment by complex reactions going on in the material it is made of. There's no such thing as a soul, even though it would of course be nice if there were, but there's not. And I am merely an animal with a big brain walking upright, as are you, as is everyone on this planet. Don't be so vain as to say we are special and other organisms aren't. We're all special, but none of us have free will, none of us have souls, we're all just highly organised matter. Get over it...

If we are nothing but animals, what makes us special, as you say? How do you know there is no such thing as a soul? Because that is what you were taught? Have you considered that you may have been decieved and that you really are in a proving ground that will determine where you will spend eternity? Think about that for awhile...does the idea of a life with purpose resonate somewhere in your heart? What could you become if you let yourself believe? You are not an animal, you have purpose for being and a destiny to discover that is yours alone. Life is not a accident. It's the beginning of a grand adventure....
 
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Catholicism

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Jamza said:
I was just wondering what Christians here thought about it. How can evil/suffering exist when God is both all powerful-and all-loving?
You mean, how can God make something powerful enough to object to and defeat the intests of the devine omnipotence?
 
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bob135

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While the scientific perspective is certainly useful for some purposes and generally true, it seems quite unhelpful for leading your life. Knowing that I am the product of billions of years of evolution doesn't really help me decide what to do with my life. Sure, what I do tomorrow and for the rest of my life might be determined, but I don't really care, since I don't know what I'm going to do until I do it, so for all intents and purposes I do have free will, even though I might not. I don't understand how the concept of the soul is useful in explaining anything, but if it gives you some sort of spiritual fulfillment, thats great.
 
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Opethian

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Wrong. When I get up in the morning, I am faced with a choice. I can do nothing productive and earn the results. (nothing) Or I can choose to do my chosen work and reap the satisfaction and the means to feed my family. This is not set in my genes, it's free will.
Maybe if I believed the evolution garbage that is taught in our colleges I could begin to understand why you think as you do. I guess I was "lucky" in that I grew up in a generation who was taught that if you want to acheive something, it requires effort. Each and every one of us has the genes that could create a serial killer or a saint. It is simply a matter of the choices that we make every day that determines which we will become.
Break free from my nice world? To find what? A meaningless existance, where everything is relivative and truth does not exist? No thanks.

Not wrong, didn't I say that there were 3 factors? Genes (which results in the body you are), environment, and memory (which is in fact part of your body too). The choice you make is based on the environment you're in, your memories, and your physical structure. Nothing else influences that choice. It's all just chemical cascades in the brain and throughout your body that cause these choices, and you "making that choice" in your train of thought is just the feedback you get from those reactions and the way you transfer input from your memories and environment to influence those reactions. Nothing more to it.
You don't have to believe evolution, you can only accept it, since it's a fact! You don't need faith to accept evolution, it is going on around us every day. I'm pretty sure you have a very limited understanding of evolution, since I've never met a person before who both understands the theory and rejects it. So do some research, learn some more about it before you judge it...
Break away from your imaginary world, and find reality, where you actually understand what is going on and have more control on it, instead of relying on figments of your imaginations that you created to explain for things you don't understand.

If we are nothing but animals, what makes us special, as you say? How do you know there is no such thing as a soul? Because that is what you were taught? Have you considered that you may have been decieved and that you really are in a proving ground that will determine where you will spend eternity? Think about that for awhile...does the idea of a life with purpose resonate somewhere in your heart? What could you become if you let yourself believe? You are not an animal, you have purpose for being and a destiny to discover that is yours alone. Life is not a accident. It's the beginning of a grand adventure....

We are special, just like ants are special, or baboons are special, or sulfur-reducing bacteria are special, because the human species has something that sets them aside from other species, just like all other species.
I know that there is no soul, not because I was taught that (my father believes in a soul and my mother is neutral), but because it is the only logical outcome after I apply all my knowledge of this world. I know I'm not in a proving ground, and if you would do some more of your effort to learn about the real world, learn about science, you would know that too.
Don't be so vain as to say that we are not animals, because we are.
You can't grasp the fact that life can arise from dead material because you have insufficient scientifical knowledge. That's all there's to it.
 
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