The Problem of Evil

Inkfingers · Mar 4, 2015

GrowingSmaller said:
Collapsing the wave function of the "multiverse" in the best possible way, for those who love him?

But doesn't that only happen if we reverse the polarity of the neutron flux?

juvenissun · Mar 4, 2015

talquin said:
None of those are sufficient evidence of an all-powerful, all-knowing & all-loving god. You'll have to do better than that.

Ignorant. There is no better word for you.

Emmy · Mar 4, 2015

Dear talquin. God is all-powerful and God loves us, God wants our love freely given, and no forcing, whatsoever. In Luke 10: 25-28: Jesus is asked:
" Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered: " What is written in the Law? Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and: love thy neighbour as thyself." Jesus also points out to us:
" on these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets, DO THIS AND YOU SHALL LIVE." All we say and all we do, all we advice or stand for,
MUST BE FROM LOVE AND COMPASSION. God is Love and God wants loving sons and daughters.
The Bible tells us: " Repent and be Born Again." We must give up all selfish wishes and wants, and start Loving God with all our beings, and loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. The Holy Spirit will help and guide us, and Jesus our Saviour will lead us all the way, JESUS IS THE WAY.
Let us treat all we know and all we meet, all friends and not friends, let us treat them as we would love to be treated. It may not be easy to start, but God wants it from us, and love is catching, and people will treat us as we treat people. God will see our loving and caring, and God will approve and bless us. Let us also remember: LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS, and evils. I say this with love, talquin. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.

Archaeopteryx · Mar 4, 2015

Emmy said:
Dear talquin. God is all-powerful and God loves us, God wants our love freely given, and no forcing, whatsoever.

So there is no punishment for failing to reciprocate his love?

GrowingSmaller · Mar 4, 2015

Well if you papa loves you he will want what is best for you, and that includes respect for him and his guidance. So its paradoxical, self interest (allegedly) lies in the love of God, because that is best for us. Afetr all narcissism is a fault, and trusting men, well a fallible excusrsion. Today, then follow or believe in the necessary good, maybe (G*d) will help you??? Even if Gods a myth, well the logic is ok all the same.

brixken7 · Mar 4, 2015

talquin said:
Christians often claim that their God can do anything. They also often claim that their God loves everyone. If such a God does exist, it would want to prevent evil and would also be capable of preventing evil.

We can quibble over what 'evil' actually means, but we all can agree that things like the genocide, the holocaust, mass suffering, rape of children, destructive earthquakes & typhoons and murder do occur. The question is why doesn't an all-powerful and all-loving God stop these things from happening?

If God is all-loving, then he would want to prevent these things.

If God is all-powerful, then he would be capable of preventing these things.

But since these things do occur, it means a god which is all-loving and all-powerful can't exist. It doesn't mean that no god exists, but it does mean we have to rethink our idea of what God is.

A frequent Christian response to this is that God needs to allow these things to accomplish some kind of greater good. However, if he is all-powerful, he can accomplish any greater good without any kinds of the aforementioned items. In other words, if one can bring about goodness without tragedy, it is better than bringing about goodness with tragedy.

There are other Christian responses, which I'll be happy to address.

..............

"However, if he is all-powerful, he can accomplish any greater good without any kinds of the aforementioned items."

Mmm. That makes me think you would never be satisfied with the Bible's answer. Even though it does make a lot of sense.

terryjohn · Mar 4, 2015

[In other words, if one can bring about goodness without tragedy, it is better than bringing about goodness with tragedy.

QUOTE] How would you know that? Is suffering not a consquence of life and is it not better to have been born than to have never been born?

kristina411 · Mar 4, 2015

I'm going to put into bold the parts I would like to be focused on when searching scripture for the answer to this.

Why is the world and nature cursed? Why do we have natural disasters?

Genesis 6:13 And God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth."
Genesis 3:17-19 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying 'You shall not eat of it': Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, And to dust you shall return."

By His grace we can become saved!
Psalm 30:3 O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

Why genocide, rape, holocaust, wars?
Genesis 6:5-6 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
James 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Sins committed by humans are NOT Gods doing but the doing of the man in whom the sin resides. SIN is responsible. SIN is the answer to this question.

Messy · Mar 4, 2015

Why Evil Disproves Atheism

JacksBratt · Mar 4, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
So there is no punishment for failing to reciprocate his love?

Do you think that you could humble your heart, accept that your a sinner, repent and ask for forgiveness, then take up your cross and follow Him if you didn't love Him?

I guess, also that Jesus broke the 10 commandments down into only two. One of which was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind".

So, looking at this, I would say that there is punishment for failing to love Him.

Remember that God is love and you cannot help but love Him if you really know Him

kristina411 · Mar 4, 2015

Messy said:
Why Evil Disproves Atheism

That was a very interesting article, thank you for providing the link. I really enjoyed reading it.

JacksBratt · Mar 4, 2015

GrowingSmaller said:
Well if you papa loves you he will want what is best for you, and that includes respect for him and his guidance. So its paradoxical, self interest (allegedly) lies in the love of God, because that is best for us. Afetr all narcissism is a fault, and trusting men, well a fallible excusrsion. Today, then follow or believe in the necessary good, maybe (G*d) will help you??? Even if Gods a myth, well the logic is ok all the same.

I guess I would have to ask, "why is narcissism a fault"?

JacksBratt · Mar 4, 2015

talquin said:
None of those are sufficient evidence of an all-powerful, all-knowing & all-loving god. You'll have to do better than that.

So, on this thread you have asked a few questions.

1/ If God is all-loving, then he would want to prevent these things.
2/ If God is all-powerful, then he would be capable of preventing these things.

and 3/ You are looking for proof of His existence.

For 1 and 2. Yes, God wants to prevent these things and He could, in one sense and can't in another. He is capable but cannot due to the fact that this is not the way He works.

All the troubles in the world stem from sin. Man causes his own problems. Greed, hate, selfishness, self love, lust for power and the belief that man is in control.

God made us with free will. Not even the purest human heart can live without causing pain and suffering to themselves or someone else.

God has a plan to stop all of this. It started with Christ on the cross. You accept this free gift of salvation. In the end, when time disappears and all the years of this age are gone, the men and women who chose the right path will live for eternity without pain, suffering or any issues of this evil driven world.

Until then, we are in this world but not of this world. Man, it's civilization and it's free will, will determine what events take place.

As for proof, it is by faith that we are saved. We cannot earn salvation. If you don't have a heart with an attitude of remorse you will never be able to see the proof. Proof comes after the attitude change.

All these people with the attitude that "these are dumb rules", or "that is wrong" "that's not the way it should be" "I want proof first"... they just don't get it. They are playing by their rules, the rules that man would have.

God wants the kind, humble, unconditional heart. Not the "ok, now I see the money, I'll take the job" sorta deal.

Once you can get to the point where you know you are lacking, you are a sinner, you need Christ, you can't do it alone and you have no right to demand anything different.... until then you will be blind to the truth, the proof, the glorious revelation of the truest love in the universe.

Once you see this, you will wonder how anyone could not.

J0hnSm1th · Mar 4, 2015

terryjohn said:
s it not better to have been born than to have never been born?

That would depend on where you spend eternity.

Davian · Mar 4, 2015

brixken7 · Mar 4, 2015

Originally Posted by terryjohn

["Is it not better to have been born than to have never been born?"

"That would depend on where you spend eternity."
......................................................................

Baloney.

"....the day of one's death" (is better) "than the day of his birth"
(Ecclesiastes 7:1).

And the plain implication here is that this is true for everyone!
Whether you're converted or not!
Because if you're unconverted, God is not through with you!

Radagast · Mar 4, 2015

talquin said:
Christians often claim that their God can do anything. They also often claim that their God loves everyone. If such a God does exist, it would want to prevent evil and would also be capable of preventing evil.

We can quibble over what 'evil' actually means, but we all can agree that things like the genocide, the holocaust, mass suffering, rape of children, destructive earthquakes & typhoons and murder do occur. The question is why doesn't an all-powerful and all-loving God stop these things from happening?

If God is all-loving, then he would want to prevent these things.

If God is all-powerful, then he would be capable of preventing these things.

But since these things do occur, it means a god which is all-loving and all-powerful can't exist. It doesn't mean that no god exists, but it does mean we have to rethink our idea of what God is.

A frequent Christian response to this is that God needs to allow these things to accomplish some kind of greater good. However, if he is all-powerful, he can accomplish any greater good without any kinds of the aforementioned items. In other words, if one can bring about goodness without tragedy, it is better than bringing about goodness with tragedy.

There are other Christian responses, which I'll be happy to address.

You've posted exactly the same thing many times before, and received good answers (which you ignored).

This is spam.

talquin · Mar 5, 2015

J0hnSm1th said:
It depends on your definition of "all-powerful". God is benevolent, for the world to exist in the state we see it means it must be that way as a step towards God's ultimate plan. If God could have made it better then he would have. The fact it isnt better means God is constrained in what he can do.

Upon asking for specifics, Christians usually admit that God is capable of doing things like re-routing a typhoon, stopping a rapist from raping a child, preventing an earthquake from occurring, keeping a murderer from going on a murder spree.

If evil occurs, then one of the following two must be true if God exists:
1) God can't do anything
2) God doesn't love everyone

talquin · Mar 5, 2015

GrowingSmaller said:
Rational attraction to being. For example safeguarding ones welfare, is as a genral rule ethical, and uses reason and results in the furtherance of a life which we can find attractive.

So god is a priori "rational attraction to being" (infallibly good, the better opition which ought to exist beyond all measure, grovel grovel) and we are finite, mortal creatures (oops, did I say that).

None of what you've said helps suggest that there is objective morality.

talquin · Mar 5, 2015

juvenissun said:
Ignorant. There is no better word for you.

Interesting that when you're backed into a corner, you can only resort to ad hominem. This is an obvious sign that you know I've beaten you badly in this debate/discussion. I would like to think it would be less painful for you to admit defeat than to concede defeat by resorting to ad hominem.

The Problem of Evil

Somebody's heretic

... and God saw that it was good.

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