The Problem of Evil

[Archaeopteryx]

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

This is spam.

I've read some of those threads. Your opinion of a good answer differs from my own.

 

[talquin]

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.

If God loves us and can do anything, then are all these rapes of children we hear about merely stories made up by the news media?

 

[talquin]

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

"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.

I've read the entire Bible. It doesn't adequately address the problem of evil.

 

[talquin]

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

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?

Goodness = Goodness
No tragedy is better than tragedy. Otherwise, tragedy would be good.

That's how I know that.

 

[talquin]

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.

Quoting the Bible isn't going to reconcile the Problem of Evil.

 

[talquin]

Why Evil Disproves Atheism

That article is one of the best examples of a straw man argument I've ever seen.

It seems like you've forgotten this part of my OP

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.

If my OP doesn't make sense, then please watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjFVP6qkiI

 

[talquin]

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.

If God exists, I would like to see sufficient evidence of his existence. But all available evidence points to the truth being that he doesn't exist.

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.

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.

So according to Christians, God is perfectly capable of preventing evil.

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.

Does man cause typhoons, earthquakes, diseases of children, tsunamis, etc.?

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

That has nothing to do with the problem of evil.

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.

That also has nothing to do with the problem of evil.

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.

How does free will determine that earthquakes and hurricanes will occur?

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.

That isn't proof of anything. I think you can do better than that.

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.

How do you know what God wants?

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.

That sounds like a straw man argument to me. Perhaps you could do a better job of addressing my OP.

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.

 

[talquin]

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

While the answers were primarily good, none of them adequately addressed the problem of evil.

 

[Inkfingers]

If God is all-loving

Does God love sin?

 

[kristina411]

Quoting the Bible gives Gods answer for evil. You want an answer from the Christian standpoint than quoting the bible is exactly what is needed because the bible is what gives Christians the answer.

 

[kristina411]

I've read the entire Bible. It doesn't adequately address the problem of evil.

Quoting the Bible isn't going to reconcile the Problem of Evil.

It doesn't address the issue or when it does it is not a good enough answer for you? Can't have it both ways.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Quoting the Bible gives Gods answer for evil. You want an answer from the Christian standpoint than quoting the bible is exactly what is needed because the bible is what gives Christians the answer.

It doesn't mean it's a good answer.

 

[kristina411]

Because your ideas and my ideas of good differ, does not mean you are correct in your assumption.

Thing is, certain people think that they deserve more, nothing is ever "good enough" for them. You want a "good enough" answer, dont have your mind already made up that you will disagree with anything a Christian says, maybe at that point answers will start making sense to you.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Because your ideas and my ideas of good differ, does not mean you are correct in your assumption.

I know that. It also doesn't mean that you're correct in yours.

Thing is, certain people think that they deserve more, nothing is ever "good enough" for them. You want a "good enough" answer, dont have your mind already made up that you will disagree with anything a Christian says, maybe at that point answers will start making sense to you.

That's an unjustified presumption on your part. I'm just not convinced by the answers that have been provided.

 

[kristina411]

Lol. Ok

 

[talquin]

Does God love sin?

The problem of evil is in response to claims that God loves everyone. This is often phrased as "all-loving". Whether or not he loves sin isn't necessary to show that the problem of evil means that a god who loves everyone and can do anything doesn't exist.

 

[talquin]

Quoting the Bible gives Gods answer for evil. You want an answer from the Christian standpoint than quoting the bible is exactly what is needed because the bible is what gives Christians the answer.

I'm looking for your reconciliation of the Problem of Evil. Not God's reconciliation.

 

[talquin]

It doesn't address the issue or when it does it is not a good enough answer for you? Can't have it both ways.

Examples of reconciliations to the problem of evil would be:

1) "Oops, I realize I'm wrong when I claim that God can do anything and loves everyone. I'll have to reevaluate my position"

2) "I'm sorry, but when I say "loves everyone", that doesn't mean he loves all those children who are brutally assaulted by child molesters. I'll have to revise my wording"

3) "I'm sorry, but when I say "can do anything", that doesn't mean he is capable of stopping a rapist from raping a child. I'll have to revise my wording".

 

[Hawkins]

God allows evil to be on earth such that those leaning to it will be removed. The righteous thus will be qualified, under open witnessing, to enter heaven where evil no longer exists.

 

[kristina411]

Like most on this board you are trying to set a question up that makes the person answering wrong no matter what they choose. You try to not even give them a chance, they are wrong before they can begin.

My answer remains.