The Problem of Evil

[Hezekiah Holbrooke]

There are many aspects of the story of Adam and Eve that are unjust. The notion of an inescapable hereditary curse is one of them.



Which is cosmically irresponsible of him. Imagine if a parent decided "not to interfere" while his child played with matches. We would reprimand such a parent for being irresponsible.

So??? Are you going to re-write the story? Are you going to change what is?
What is your purpose with this?

 

[talquin]

Free will. I think the argument goes like this:

Logically Free Will requires both the existence of options (choice) and the ability to effect the option chosen.
Free Will is illusory if the range of options includes only trivial matters; therefore, Free Will requires that the range of options include
substantial and meaningful differences.
Therefore, if humanity has Free Will individual humans must be able to choose between Good and Evil and effect that choice.
Therefore, if humanity has Free Will, God logically must not prevent the actualization of the choice to do Evil.

Thus, evidence of individual or collective humans' choices to do evil cannot be imputed to God who must, by the provision of Free Will, not interfere with such choice.

Essentially, it is the "golden cage" problem. To whom is the greater gift given, the one who is thrust into the world to live and thrive or suffer and die as a consequence of his/her decisions; or the one who is insulated from all choice, all suffering to live in blissful ignorance and without responsibility for all of his/her days?

Personally, I prefer former.

Why doesn't God stop the rapist from raping the child? Or the massive earthquake from striking Haiti and killing some 200,000 people? God wouldn't have to mess with anyone's free will to do that.

 

[talquin]

To berate God. You are simply the typical atheist, no different from all the others. You claim God does not exist and then berate Him. It's stupid. Why berate someone or some thing you do not believe exists? Is that sane?

Obviously you don't understand the purpose of my agenda.

 

[Hezekiah Holbrooke]

The Bible portrays God in a very bad light, particularly in the first handful of books.

All you are saying here is that you don't understand what the Bible is telling you. You need to study it with your mind void of your pre-conceived conclusions and you will find your answers. Get off the forum and off your soapbox and study the scriptures. I offer though that an understanding of the scriptures and of the nature and character of God is not your real concern or purpose.

 

[Hezekiah Holbrooke]

Obviously you don't understand the purpose of my agenda.

Then tell us what it really is. Don't lie though.

 

[CryOfALion]

This tells me that you reconcile the problem of evil by holding the belief that God doesn't love everyone enough to stop mass calamities.

No, I know God loves His creation; I also know which principalities are responsible for calamity. And, be glad they are on leashes.

But it raises a question - why go through a roundabout method of doing that. Why not come right out and say, "God doesn't love people enough to stop the mass calamities"?

Because it is not true; it is a perception and feeling. Those lie.

People spend billions of dollars a year manipulating truth for lies, and the perception and feelings of people. Capitalism and geopolitics is built on this. I try not to trust feelings for truth. As I said, even EM waves with enough power, or chemistry can make you feel horrible. It may not be the truth.

No I am not bad because I did nothing to stop it. But if I was capable of stopping it and loved the people who were about to get slaughtered, then it wouldn't be representative of my loving nature if I failed to stop it.

But, a popular human meme is that we can do anything we put our minds to. Stopping a war should be no problem; you don't have to fight fire with fire. You can fight it with truth, or life. Did you do that?

Do you have money? You could give as much of it as possible away to other people - like nearly all.

What about homeless people you see: do you help them all of the time, as often as possible?

What about bullied people?

There is too much humans can do to better our own lives with the God-given power we have it is amazing we allow ourselves to blame something else - especially a God.

Now it's clear to me you believe in a god who is at best indifferent to our plight and at worst sadistic. But certainly not a god who is loving.

Emotionalism is about as clear as a karst lake: deceptively clear, yet more reflective (inwardly) than reality. Feelings lie. I could easily say God doesn't give two of anything about me with what I have been through. But, I also realize a lot of it was my own fault, and He has been there.

You are blaming the wrong god, honestly.

 

[talquin]

Then tell us what it really is. Don't lie though.

Let's use a very simple example. Let's say a very nice and caring boy in your neighborhood claims that 2+2 is equal to 35. He goes around telling other boys that 2+2 is equal to 35. And the other boys don't do the math, but simply believe him. As you care about the boy and any other boys he may influence, you have a conversation with the boy in which you ask him why he believes 2+2 is equal to 35. And he basically says "because it is". So you ask him to provide a demonstration and he says he doesn't do that. You then offer to show him a demonstration to prove that 2+2 isn't 35 and he refuses to have anything of it. You remain perplexed why he would think this and since the boy won't talk, you have no recourse to understand his thinking.

Then you stumble upon other nice & caring boys who also believe 2+2 is equal to 35. Unlike the previously mentioned boy, these boys are willing to talk. So it is safe to assume that their explanation is similar to the explanation of the neighborhood boy if he were to talk. You go on to ask this other group of boys to explain their reasoning. After a few questions, you notice that they seem a little more willing to talk than did the neighborhood boy. You can then learn a little bit about what the reasoning is behind the neighborhood boy believing that 2+2 is equal to 35.

 

[talquin]

No, I know God loves His creation; I also know which principalities are responsible for calamity. And, be glad they are on leashes.

So unlike most of the others in here who reconcile this by holding an implicit belief that God doesn't love everyone, you reconcile this by holding an implicit belief that God is incapable of preventing the aforementioned mass calamities.

Because it is not true; it is a perception and feeling. Those lie.

People spend billions of dollars a year manipulating truth for lies, and the perception and feelings of people. Capitalism and geopolitics is built on this. I try not to trust feelings for truth. As I said, even EM waves with enough power, or chemistry can make you feel horrible. It may not be the truth.

But, a popular human meme is that we can do anything we put our minds to. Stopping a war should be no problem; you don't have to fight fire with fire. You can fight it with truth, or life. Did you do that?

Do you have money? You could give as much of it as possible away to other people - like nearly all.

What about homeless people you see: do you help them all of the time, as often as possible?

What about bullied people?

There is too much humans can do to better our own lives with the God-given power we have it is amazing we allow ourselves to blame something else - especially a God.

False analogy. A god is posited to be able to do anything. I can't do anything. Perhaps to stop the children from playing on the tracks, I will cause undue harm to myself. But if I could do anything, I wouldn't need to go on the tracks to rescue the children. I could just cause the train to stop.

Emotionalism is about as clear as a karst lake: deceptively clear, yet more reflective (inwardly) than reality. Feelings lie. I could easily say God doesn't give two of anything about me with what I have been through. But, I also realize a lot of it was my own fault, and He has been there.

You are blaming the wrong god, honestly.

I don't blame any god for anything. Where and how did you get the idea I did?

 

[Revelations2]

Dear Talquin,

You said: "It's logically impossible for an all powerful & all loving God to exist in the presence of mass calamities & mass catastrophes. What we define as 'evil' might be subject to interpretation, but we can all agree that things like genocide, the holocaust, rapes & molesting of children, famines, destructive tsunamis, destructive earthquakes and destructive tornadoes do occur.

If God loves everyone, then he would want to see that people don't suffer as a result of the aforementioned items. But since such things do occur, then we can conclude if God is all-loving, then he is incapable of preventing such catastrophes.

Similarly, if God can do anything, then he would be able to prevent all the aforementioned catastrophes. But since these things do occur, we can conclude if God can do anything, then he doesn't love humans enough to prevent the aforementioned catastrophes."

It appears that you have made yourself out to be "a self made God" to judge your very creator.

Having said that, if you were God and you used your power to micromanage and control every act and thought of every man and woman on this earth, what then would your purpose of placing man upon this earth be?

Would you not therefore be acting as the most absolute dictator and clear opponent of the God given gift of moral agency?

How then could your creations develop in this "earth laboratory" their attributes of integrity, virtue, freedom of will and their individual moral agency?

 

[CryOfALion]

So unlike most of the others in here who reconcile this by holding an implicit belief that God doesn't love everyone, you reconcile this by holding an implicit belief that God is incapable of preventing the aforementioned mass calamities.

I don't think most implicitly agree with you, and think that God doesn't love everyone.

and, my belief that God loves everyone isn't implicit; it is by faith.


You are the only one saying since God doesn't do something He is therefore incapable of doing it.

False analogy. A god is posited to be able to do anything. I can't do anything. Perhaps to stop the children from playing on the tracks, I will cause undue harm to myself. But if I could do anything, I wouldn't need to go on the tracks to rescue the children. I could just cause the train to stop.

Not a false analogy. Humanity has adapted the mentality that you can do anything you put your mind to.

Reality tells us that we are limited, but powerful yet to do much on our own, and a cumulative effort can assuage a large majority of problems.

If you are complaining about things - even tornadoes - and are not part of a solution, then that is lazy and disingenuous. You have no idea how mathematically chaotic choices are:simply purging events often cause more problems than driven solutions in mathematics. Similarly with life. You can stop the train, but without future intelligence on all possible solutions, you have no idea if you stopping a train will cause a nuclear apocalypse fifteen years later. You are working on emotions, not truth. Maybe if math was combined with spirituality like the beginning, it would be easily recognizable how things that happen are consequential, but also drive toward a well-rounded solution. The variables, functions and operations in life work meticulously, and chaotically for each individual's unique solution (life.)


This life is basally ordered mathematical chaos with uniquely functional extrema.

I don't blame any god for anything. Where and how did you get the idea I did?

All of your posts. You are continuously saying that because God doesn't stop calamity, He can't - or He causes it and therefore does not love [all of] us. This is your OP. You be the Most High while the enemy and other principalities are doing the work of evil. God is the one maintaining the leash so that *in addition* to all of the calamity, you at least have the option of life after. Your choice.

 

[talquin]

Dear Talquin,

You said: "It's logically impossible for an all powerful & all loving God to exist in the presence of mass calamities & mass catastrophes. What we define as 'evil' might be subject to interpretation, but we can all agree that things like genocide, the holocaust, rapes & molesting of children, famines, destructive tsunamis, destructive earthquakes and destructive tornadoes do occur.

If God loves everyone, then he would want to see that people don't suffer as a result of the aforementioned items. But since such things do occur, then we can conclude if God is all-loving, then he is incapable of preventing such catastrophes.

Similarly, if God can do anything, then he would be able to prevent all the aforementioned catastrophes. But since these things do occur, we can conclude if God can do anything, then he doesn't love humans enough to prevent the aforementioned catastrophes."

It appears that you have made yourself out to be "a self made God" to judge your very creator.

Having said that, if you were God and you used your power to micromanage and control every act and thought of every man and woman on this earth, what then would your purpose of placing man upon this earth be?

Would you not therefore be acting as the most absolute dictator and clear opponent of the God given gift of moral agency?

How then could your creations develop in this "earth laboratory" their attributes of integrity, virtue, freedom of will and their individual moral agency?

Please explain how preventing a massive typhoon from slamming into the Philippines or preventing a rapist from getting to the house of the child he desires to rape affect anyone's integrity, virtue or freedom of will?

 

[JohnLocke]

Why doesn't God stop the rapist from raping the child? Or the massive earthquake from striking Haiti and killing some 200,000 people? God wouldn't have to mess with anyone's free will to do that.

1. In order to stop the rapist from raping the child, God would have to interfere with that choice, which would mean that the rapist did not in fact have the choice to rape the child in the first place. You and I may differ on the value of free will, but a "choice" without the power to effectuate that choice is an illusion. Therefore, to preserve Free Will, God must not intervene in the manner you suggest.

2. Assuming for the moment that God could have made the world without earthquakes, is the presence of earthquakes mutually exclusive to the existence of a loving God?

A lot depends on your definition of loving God. In the original post, it seems that you have defined loving God as an entity that would prevent all suffering if it could. By that definition, under the aforementioned assumption, earthquakes and the existence of a loving God are mutually exclusive.

Not sure that gets you very far. All that it "proves" is that if God exists, God is not a being able to do anything who would also prevent all suffering if able to do so.

 

[Hezekiah Holbrooke]

Let's use a very simple example. Let's say a very nice and caring boy in your neighborhood claims that 2+2 is equal to 35. He goes around telling other boys that 2+2 is equal to 35. And the other boys don't do the math, but simply believe him. As you care about the boy and any other boys he may influence, you have a conversation with the boy in which you ask him why he believes 2+2 is equal to 35. And he basically says "because it is". So you ask him to provide a demonstration and he says he doesn't do that. You then offer to show him a demonstration to prove that 2+2 isn't 35 and he refuses to have anything of it. You remain perplexed why he would think this and since the boy won't talk, you have no recourse to understand his thinking.

Then you stumble upon other nice & caring boys who also believe 2+2 is equal to 35. Unlike the previously mentioned boy, these boys are willing to talk. So it is safe to assume that their explanation is similar to the explanation of the neighborhood boy if he were to talk. You go on to ask this other group of boys to explain their reasoning. After a few questions, you notice that they seem a little more willing to talk than did the neighborhood boy. You can then learn a little bit about what the reasoning is behind the neighborhood boy believing that 2+2 is equal to 35.

Why would you care for the reasoning of what others think about 2 + 2 if you yourself have researched it totally and arrived at your own conclusion? Nice try but no sale.

You started the thread to try to trap Christians into a discussion by asking a question to which you had already arrived at your own conclusion.
You lie.

 

[juvenissun]

Now you're really contradicting yourself. God can't love everyone and be able to do anything in the presence of mass calamities.

Simply put:


1) From definition: An omnipotent entity can remove all evil if it wants to.
2) From definition: An omnibenevolent entity would remove all evil if it can.
3) From 1-2: if an omnipotent and omnibenevolent entity exists, then evil does not.
4) Assume temporarily that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent entity exists.
5) From 1-4: Evil does not exist.
6) From observation: Evil exists.
7) 5 and 6 form a contradiction. Therefore, the assumption (step 4) is false, and an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god cannot exist.

#2 is not true.

 

[Paradoxum]

If you and Talquin are both really interested in finding out the nature of God and His character, I recommend a very good book for you to read. It's called "The Holy Bible" and can be found at Walmart or at many other stores.

I own three Bibles, and I read a fair amount of them.

Apparently he is - especially if he's posited to be able to do anything.

Here's a quote from Tracie Harris:

“You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, ‘When you’re done, I’m going to punish you.’If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That’s the difference between me and your God.”

These are my thoughts on this issue too.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Well, quite honestly no human except Christ has any say on your spiritual destination, given we have all broken Universal Law, and that even the smallest infraction of this Law warrants spiritual death. Respectfully, I would ignore where other humans tell you your spiritual destination is, and honestly find out what God says. There are many parables about haughty religious folk chastising people who they think are going to knock the bottom out of hell, only to find God favors a repentant hell-bent sinner over arrogant self-righteous zealots - in all of their flavors and qualities.

You may be surprise where you end up.

That is beside the point. The very concept of Hell - a place where one is punished eternally for the "crime" of not believing certain doctrines - is irreconcilable with that of a just and compassionate deity.

He could, but He didnt, and doesn't.

How do you know? He could be playing a cosmic prank on you and the rest of humanity, whereby he promises salvation to believers, but in the final moment, grants it to nonbelievers instead. Remember, he has no obligation to you, and there is no punishment for him if he breaks his covenant because he was never obligated to keep it.

God didn't manipulate Abraham. Abraham was part of a multi-faceted teaching for His namesake: father of many. It was always Abraham's choice on what to do - he could have lied to God about his love for Isaac, or said he couldn't do it. On The contrary, Abraham had submitted to His will, and was about to kill his son for God, but God saw the intention/heart, knew he loved God more than his son, and instead decided to give Him a ram to sacrifice. This allowed Abraham as the first covenant holder to be an active participant in prophecy of Redemption. It foreshadowed God's feeling and sacrifice of giving up His eternal Child to keep the relationship He has with His creation. In reverse symmetry, Abraham was willing to give up his mortal child to keep the relationship he had with his Creator. This meeting of intentions between Abraham, Isaac, Christ and God creates a union between the spiritual and physical. Also called doing God's will.

Again, this is not a story that speaks well regarding his goodness.

Ok, yes Job was manipulated - but by everyone else but God - which is why He was so heated at the end of the book (rightfully so.)

Firstly, the enemy in arrogance has the audacity to tell God he had been spiritually checking out the planet He made for the humans at a spiritual meeting (imagine a board member telling the Chairperson s/he was watching their kids' routine for the past month just because.)

Then, this enemy assert that His creation only cares about God because he does things for them.

After God shows Him Job, and expresses His pleasure with him, the enemy tries to play chess as a novice with a Grandmaster like God - insinuating it is easy for Job to follow Him because Job was rich with plenty of kids and a wife.

God gave permission to let the enemy test job; He clearly knows what will happen. The enemy begs God for more and more permission to torment Job - again, the Enemy begged God for more permission to torment Job, and God allowed it as long as it didn't kill him.

Job got really low, but never cursed God. As a matter of fact, Job's friends and wife played agency - telling him God was doing this and that, and that God was angry because he had some sin on his soul. God wasn't doing anything; the enemy was. At the end of it all, the point that was much addressing the argument of the OP: cataclysmic things can happen, but it doesn't mean God neither can't prevent it nor that He doesn't love His creation of He does the prevent it. Job was faithful and had his whole livelihood restored.

Job's life was thrown into disarray because God wanted to make a point to the Enemy whom he allowed to torment Job. Again, not exactly a story that speaks to God's goodness.

Those peoples were either gargantuan warrior nations and magicians that delighted in the torture, eating and define of Hebrews, or descendants and partakers of those people who continued the same practices. Would you not order your sons to destroy a nation that had not only lyrics taught your sons and daughters depravity in sexton and philosophy, but also broke the bones of your sons for soup stock, ate them, and taught them soul-depleting magick for centuries? At some point, they all have to go - men, women and children... even pets.

You are basically saying that genocide is okay when God commands it.

A common thing in Christiandom and contemporary understanding of is is that Adam and Eve were babes. They were not spiritually or scientifically like babies; they were very much adult/mature. Babies are not charged with naming every single animal on a planet (whose Hebrew names are functional meanings, not random - indicating intelligence.) A baby does not get dominion over a planet, and a sky of stars to be used for signs and seasons e.g. agriculture and astronomy. When God told Adam not to eat, He knew Adam had the maturity, spiritual responsibility and intellectual wherewithal to accept the order - and Adam knew he had this too.

That's right. Just like the angels who fell should have known better - being very very old and intelligent, Adam should have known better being the physic image of the Most High God in all implications. Adam was also fully aware that if he ate the "fruit," he would die.

Adam lacked the ability to morally appraise God's commands, having been created without knowledge of good and evil. That is not Adam's fault, but an oversight of his creator.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

All you are saying here is that you don't understand what the Bible is telling you. You need to study it with your mind void of your pre-conceived conclusions and you will find your answers. Get off the forum and off your soapbox and study the scriptures. I offer though that an understanding of the scriptures and of the nature and character of God is not your real concern or purpose.

I was once a Christian, and I have studied the scriptures.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

1. In order to stop the rapist from raping the child, God would have to interfere with that choice, which would mean that the rapist did not in fact have the choice to rape the child in the first place. You and I may differ on the value of free will, but a "choice" without the power to effectuate that choice is an illusion. Therefore, to preserve Free Will, God must not intervene in the manner you suggest.

This is asinine. If you are in a position to stop a rape from occurring, would you decide against it so as to preserve the rapist's free will?

 

[Cearbhall]

All you are saying here is that you don't understand what the Bible is telling you. You need to study it with your mind void of your pre-conceived conclusions and you will find your answers. Get off the forum and off your soapbox and study the scriptures. I offer though that an understanding of the scriptures and of the nature and character of God is not your real concern or purpose.

Rereading the stories isn't going to change the fact that many of God's actions in those stories go against the moral codes of certain individuals, including my own. If you're saying that the message behind his actions is the real purpose, then I agree. Even when I was Catholic, I didn't believe that many of those early stories actually happened (they're all sketchy transcriptions of ancient oral history), and I was told that I didn't have to. The message was the important part. However, that doesn't change the nature of the actions themselves, fictional or not.

 

[talquin]

1. In order to stop the rapist from raping the child, God would have to interfere with that choice, which would mean that the rapist did not in fact have the choice to rape the child in the first place.

That sounds like a God which is somewhat limited in his power. If God can do anything, I can think of many ways in which he could stop a rapist from raping a child without interfering with the would-be-rapist's choices.

You and I may differ on the value of free will, but a "choice" without the power to effectuate that choice is an illusion. Therefore, to preserve Free Will, God must not intervene in the manner you suggest.

Let's say I have a choice to go to the post office or to Starbucks. I choose to go to the post office. But the road to the post office is blocked and I can't get there. Has my power to effectuate my choice to go to the post office been impacted? Is my choice to go to the post office instead of Starbucks an illusion?

2. Assuming for the moment that God could have made the world without earthquakes, is the presence of earthquakes mutually exclusive to the existence of a loving God?

No

A lot depends on your definition of loving God. In the original post, it seems that you have defined loving God as an entity that would prevent all suffering if it could. By that definition, under the aforementioned assumption, earthquakes and the existence of a loving God are mutually exclusive.

Not true. An earthquake in which there isn't mass suffering is possible.

Not sure that gets you very far. All that it "proves" is that if God exists, God is not a being able to do anything who would also prevent all suffering if able to do so.

It proves that an all-loving & all-powerful god can't exist. Is that what you're trying to say?