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Fun fact, if you arrive at this conclusion as an 8 year old in Sunday school at your ultra fundamentalist Baptist Church and proceed to tell the teacher, you get yelled at and spanked by the teacher and your parents! Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
It was a test
It’s me, the Sunday school teacher
Yeah, and the Sunday school teacher failed.
One day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you’ll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log.
As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children.
And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
-Sir Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
there is a non terminating loop in this diagram and that is where god is mic drop
A ghost hidden within the finite state automata, you say, dare we call it a Deus ex machina even? :-P
That’s where christians are stuck, at least
Good and Evil are ultimately relative and subjective terms. They also don’t really explore the mechanisms by which Good/Evil occur or are evaluated.
The argument from Evil really just boils down to “God isn’t real because I’m not happy”. And that doesn’t logically follow.
I think the fundamental issue with this is that it presumes that our understanding of morality is perfect. If an all-knowing, all-powerful God acted contrary to our understanding of morality, or allowed something to happen contrary to our understanding of morality it would make sense for us to perceive that as undermining our understanding of God, making him imperfect. An all-knowing, all-encomposing God may have an understanding that we as mortals are incapable of understanding or perceiving.
It presumes to know a perfect morality while also arguing that morality can be subjective. It doesn’t make sense, just like an irrational belief in a God. I think the best way to go about this is to allow people to believe how they want and stop trying to convince people one way another about their beliefs. People get to believe differently and that is not wrong.
Edit: holy shit those reddit comments are full of /r/iamverysmart material lmfao
I don’t know if I misunderstood you, but “making millions of people suffer horribly and needlessly for no fault of their own might just be the most ethical thing there is, you never know, so let’s not draw any conclusions about God allowing that to happen.” just seems like a rather unconvincing line of thought to me. It’s essentially just saying “God is always right, accept that”
I guess god just gave us the moral understanding that his (in)actions are insanely immoral to test our unquestioned loyalty to him, or he just likes a little trolling. Or maybe he just doesn’t exist…
Any God that could prevent the suffering of millions and still allow it is not a God worthy of your worship.
Or maybe they have an afterlife of imeserable bliss to offset the injustice they experienced in life. There can always be a different reason thought of, but to conclude to one or the other side is illogical. As humans we want to know definitively and either side accepts their position as truth because it’s most comfortable. But in reality it’s ok to accept people’s beliefs one way or another because at the end of the day we’re just trying to make sense of our illogical and improbable existence.
A shame you didn’t reply to my comment from earlier, since the afterlife argument is used quite often in this instance while not actually resolving the underlying problem:
One answer I’ve heard from religious people is that life after death will make up for it all. But that doesn’t make sense either. If heaven/paradise/whatever puts life into such small perspective that our suffering doesn’t matter, then our lives truly don’t mean anything. It’s just a feelgood way of saying god couldn’t care less about child cancer - because in the grand scheme of things it’s irrelevant anyway.
You’re missing my point. It doesn’t matter. None of it makes sense. It makes just as much sense to believe in a god as it does to not believe in one, because at the end of the day it’s about an individuals coping with the unfairness of life, the inexplicable natute of existence and consciousness, and the inevitability of death. It’s about fulfilling an individuals need for purpose and place and whatever makes you most comfortable and gives you peace at the end of the day, fine. Trying to convince one another’s personal fantasies for our purpose in life is like trying to prove someone’s favorite food shouldn’t be their favorite food. It’s all personal.
So this kind of post confuses me. Who gives a fuck what people believe at the end of the day as long as it’s not hurting someone else and it gives the person peace. If one person’s beliefs don’t make sense to you or bring you peace, then you should believe something else. I don’t get this hating on believers or non believers. Who cares?
All fair. You’re simply having an entirely different conversation here. Should we respect people’s beliefs and religious affiliations? Sure. Don’t think anyone in this thread doubted that (or I haven’t seen anyone at least). It’s just not the point.
Maybe the questions of “what’s the truth” or “how far does logic get us in terms of religious statements” are irrelevant to you. Then this post simply isn’t for you. Some people, me included, find those questions interesting and worthwhile - although completely separate from your issue about respecting beliefs, illogical as they may be.
As far as this second issue goes: Based on the premises that bad stuff is indeed happening and people are suffering from it, the Epicurean paradox in my opinion very neatly explains why the abrahamic god cannot exist. I have no problem with people believing in him anyway; people also believe in fairies and ghosts and Santa Claus. Good for them. In the past I’ve occasionally encountered attempts to answer the Epicurean paradox from a religious perspective that struck me as very unkind; especially the attempt to belittle human suffering in itself. They come down to the notion that the suffering in this life is simply not that relevant in the grand scheme of things; it will be compensated or forgotten in the afterlife anyway; it’s necessary; it’s part of gods plan; or in any other way either actually good or just not that important. So in short: We get ignorant towards human suffering in order to avoid the paradox of it’s existence. But by far most religious people don’t think like that. They don’t think about the Epicurean paradox at all, or they simply don’t think it through. And that’s okay.
It’s also okay not to find any of this interesting. To me personally, my life, my relationship with myself and with the world, those questions were immensely important. Which is why I occasionally still participate in those conversations.
To add to your point, one of the reasons to have this conversation is to get everyone on the same page when trying to function as a community with a wide variety of beliefs: people are allowed to believe what they want to believe, but once someone starts trying to convince others their religious framework serves the “one true god” this framework exists to shut that down.
as long as it’s not hurting someone else
That’s the problem with most organised religions.
Or maybe they have an afterlife of imeserable bliss to offset the injustice they experienced in life. There can always be a different reason thought of, but to conclude to one or the other side is illogical.
It’s important to set clear definitions of what one understands as “truth”, “reality” and therefore “logical” to be able to have a meaningful discussion about this. And on the level of credibility, believing in stuff one religion preaches is as much worth as the other religion which at the end of the day is worth shit as there is no way to verify those. If I would say Iwe were giant pink elephants, hopping around on the moon and only imagining the world around us as we believe it to be, there would be no way to prove or disprove this as it is unverifyable in its nature.
Therefore, I prefer to label conceptions as truths which can be proven by the scientific method as its the best tool we have to produce verifiable facts about us and the world around us. Even if that would be an illusion, it’s at least a reasonable attempt.
I’d rather admit that I don’t know something than to just assume some sky grandpa or transcendal elephant goddess did it that way.
An all-knowing, all-encomposing God may have an understanding that we as mortals are incapable of understanding or perceiving.
That being could make us understand.
Sure, but the concept itself is that whatever entity it is knows better, so the fact you don’t undetstand has a purpose in the entity’s “grand scheme”.
What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter because as humans we’re all just trying to make sense of ourselves and our place in the universe. The fact we exist is perplexing, and however we decide to deal with that fact is up to each individual, and that’s ok.
If you skip the “evil” part and just start talking about “things that are bad for us humans” it’s still true though. Sure, maybe child cancer is somehow moral or good from the perspective of an immortal entity, but in this case this entity is obviously operating on a basis that is completely detached from what’s meaningful to us. Our lives, our suffering, our hardship - obviously none of all this is relevant enough to a potential god to do anything about it. Or he would, but can’t. Hence the Epicurean paradox.
One answer I’ve heard from religious people is that life after death will make up for it all. But that doesn’t make sense either. If heaven/paradise/whatever puts life into such small perspective that our suffering doesn’t matter, then our lives truly don’t mean anything. It’s just a feelgood way of saying god couldn’t care less about child cancer - because in the grand scheme of things it’s irrelevant anyway.
To us humans, our lives aren’t meaningless. Child cancer isn’t irrelevant. We care about what’s happening in this life and to the people we care about. How could a god be of any relevance to us if our understanding of importance, of value, of good and bad, is so meaningless to them? Why would we ever construct and celebrate organized religion around something so detached from ourselves? The answer is: We wouldn’t.
Either god is relevant to our lives or he isn’t. Reality tells us: He isn’t. Prayers don’t work, hardship isn’t helped, suffering isn’t stopped. Thought through to it’s inevitable conclusion the Epicurean paradox is logical proof that god as humans used to think about him doesn’t exist, and if something of the sorts exists, it’s entirely irrelevant to us.
You may be right.
If a god does exist, then bad things are part of its higher morality, or evil design. If a god doesn’t exist, then who cares? Why waste so much energy disproving its existence? Just ignore the crazy religious people, and try and help make the world better. Those people may waste time praying, or not doing anything to help suffering and then act high and mighty, but that will NEVER stop. Religion has and always will exist. It’s a way for people to cope with their insignificance, cope with unfairness, and grapple with the concept of death and accepting its inevitablity. If you want to feel and be better than them by actually helping humanity go for it. But at the end of the day people can believe what they will and that’s ok. But whether or not there is a god, despising or looking down on people for believing is just as productive as you believe praying is.
Why waste so much energy disproving its existence?
I hope it doesn’t annoy you, as I said in it other subcomment trees already, but I feel the need to say it for potential other readers:
Because organised religion has caused and does still cause a tremendous amount of suffering.Just ignore the crazy religious people
That is easier said than done if the crazy religious, spiritual, superstituous people don’t ignore you and murder you for supposedly being a witch. Sounds medieval, but it isn’t. https://www.dw.com/en/witch-hunts-a-global-problem-in-the-21st-century/a-54495289 Or if you are being beaten and killed for being homosexual. https://www.dw.com/en/iran-defends-execution-of-gay-people/a-49144899 Or if you are being “honour killed” because you didn’t want to live in a forced marriage and wear a head scarf. https://www.dw.com/en/honor-killings-in-germany-when-families-turn-executioners/a-42511928
Long story short: too many religious people suck a lot. Worsened by their need to expand their religion by proselytizing the naive and thereby nurturing more maniacs.
Why waste so much energy disproving its existence?
To mitigate suffering and save lives in the long run.
Religion has and always will exist.
Probably true but changeable by peacefully reducing member counts of religions.
It’s a way for people to cope with their insignificance, cope with unfairness, and grapple with the concept of death and accepting its inevitablity
Which shows the need for further societal support solutions on a larger scale which do not need religion to function. Think of better education, better access to medical and psychological help as a start.
“Uhhh mysterious ways is why children get cancer”
This is a copout and you’re a silly little guy
I think the fundamental issue with this is that it presumes that our understanding of morality is perfect.
By that measure, all religions have the fundamental issue of presuming that they have any actual knowledge or understanding of their god(s).
But not all religions claim to have perfect knowledge of their god? Some acknowledge that god is greater and beyond our understanding
Conveniently, they claim to know what their god wants when they’re telling you want to do, but also claim not to understand their gods ways when challenged on parts of their faith.
I mean yeah, that is the point. A higher being told you to do X, you understood X exactly as it is a concept that you already have built upon in the course of your life. But you still cannot comprehend the higher being itself.
Take a simple thought experiment from flatland. If a spherical (3D) being were to appear on an otherwise 2D (flatland) world and say “Do not go to your house tonight”. The flatlander can understand the meaning of what the sphere said, but cannot comprehend the sphere itself in its entirety. No matter how the sphere explains himself to the flatlander, the flatlander may not have the correct picture of the sphere.
My point is that none of it makes sense. Our existence and consciousness in a vast universe doesn’t make sense. So at the end of the day, who cares what someone else believes to cope with that? Bad shit happens, people will explain it was for one purpose or another, but at the end of the day bad shit just happens and we should do our best to stop it, regardless of whos fault it is.
It’s so weird. Athiests claim to not believe in a god but then blame a god for when bad things happen, asking believers why their god would let it happen. Why do they care about what an imaginary god lets happen? Some sick fuck murdered a bunch of people, who gives a flying fuck what some random religon’s god says about it?
who cares what someone else believes to cope with that?
I start caring then those “coping mechanisms” begin to be imposed on people who aren’t members of that religion.
So at the end of the day, who cares what someone else believes to cope with that?
I care as soon as religion causes suffering. Which was and still is the case. (Sorry, have to say it again.)
but at the end of the day bad shit just happens and we should do our best to stop it, regardless of whos fault it is.
Agreed.
Athiests claim to not believe in a god but then blame a god for when bad things happen
Personally, I can imagine that’s frustration coming from people who may have been raised in a religious household. But I can’t speak for all. Haven’t heard from such a phenomenon though.
Regarding your first paragraph:
According to the christian bible their God literally told them that for example killing is evil. And yet, it exists and God is a mass murderer according to bible accounts. There are various explicit and implicit definitions of good and evil available in that book which is supposedly written by their God in some way or another. Therefore, the omnipotent being defined clear rules of morality which it doesn’t even uphold itself.
allow people to believe how they want and stop trying to convince people one way another about their beliefs
Although I agree in principle with the notion of “live and let live”, organised religion has caused unfathomable suffering and it still does. In a lot of religions it is sadly incorporated into their very core. That’s something which I can not tolerate and will speak out against.
Double this.
Basically God’s evil != Human’s evil
But God told humans what good and evil is, therefore human’s evil is at least a subset of God’s evil.
AFAIK that’s true for Islam and several branches of orthodoxy.
What’s the definition of “all powerful”? Would an all-powerful being need to be able to draw a square without it being a rectangle? Or to build a house without walls?
If the answer is “no”, then I’d argue that the left most arrow/conclusion is logically wrong/misplaced/invalid. Assuming that “free will” is not possible without “evil”.
That’s the thing, it seems too simplistic, though probably is a good start towards something, better understanding I suppose.
Like all planar squares must be rectangles, but curved square nonplanar washers exist… and those neither disprove nor prove the existence of a God (or Gods, or any spiritual beings at all)?:-P
The devil as they say is in the details, like what exactly is evil, in order to go from mere wordplay to true philosophical understanding. imho at least.
Agreed.
Evil is also a subjective concept, the same action can be perceived as good or evil depending on the understood context.
When you allow action on the subjective experience of life aka free will, you also allow evil to emerge from those actions as those interaction collide with the subjective experience of others.
Well sure. You could argue that evil is subjective. But even so we could just go with gods definition of “evil” things and use the 10 commandments as what he deems good or bad. In which case he created a world in which people will do the things he told them not to (same with the Apple) which makes him either not good or not all powerful.
Personally God becomes a lot more palettable when he is a non all powerful and non all knowing higher dimensional being that just created us and can’t be fucked dealing with this problem he created. Like avoiding cleaning the dishes in the sink.
I wouldn’t put too much credibility towards the commandments or any established religions for that matter.
The personification of god has always bothered me. The meme is a very effective argument against the all knowing super human god dogma with its cryptic masterplan but it falls flat when you personally relate god more to an intelligent-conscious force of nature.
This presupposes that “evil” exists as a universal concept that a god is bound, versus a god that exists outside of concepts of morality.
It doesn’t. What it simply presupposes that if God participates or allows it, that puts god in the “not all good” category
If God exists withtout morality, god cannot be all good to us
If a god exists, then it could reasonably be believed (without evidence, since there is no evidence for any god at all) that god is defining morality for us, rather than defining morality in regards to themselves. You could likewise argue that if it’s the will of god, then it must be good, and if it’s not the will of god, then it’s not good. So children getting cancer? That’s clearly god’s will, and is therefore good.
If a god exists, then it could reasonably be believed (without evidence, since there is no evidence for any god at all) that god is defining morality for us, rather than defining morality in regards to themselves.
Absolutely, and this is the frame of reference for the paradox. When, in the paradox parameters, we say “god cannot be all-good” what we are saying is “god cannot be all good as we understand it and as the Church is pitching him”
You could likewise argue that if it’s the will of god, then it must be good, and if it’s not the will of god, then it’s not good. So children getting cancer? That’s clearly god’s will, and is therefore good.
That is not a valid argument IMO, you are now redefining what is good or bad, not on the merits of the act or the consequences it carries, but by who executes it. You are deriving a quality from a source not intended to convey it. Like saying “if Ford made this car, it must be fast”
you are now redefining what is good or bad, not on the merits of the act or the consequences it carries, but by who executes it.
That’s a core Christian ideology though. They define god as being the source of everything that is good. Therefore, if god wills it, then regardless of how awful a thing seems, it must definitionally be good. Everything is contextual to the will of god. It’s a very simplistic view of morality (as is the idea that morality is universal and unchanging).
That’s a core Christian ideology though
Well considering this is not based on evidence or logic, I think it’s safe to dismiss from this argument.
To clarify, not attacking the validity of your point, I am attacking the “solution” presented here by the Church. Basically, “if we say it’s good you must take my word for it”… nope
So children getting cancer? That’s clearly god’s will, and is therefore good.
This answer to the Epicurean paradox is nothing but semantics. Let’s just rephrase the question:
- Can god be all powerful, all knowing, and all loving by human standards?
–> No. It creates a paradox. So, using human words and human concepts, god cannot possibly be all three things. Therefore, by human standards, we cannot expect love, omniscience, and omnipotence from him. That’s all the paradox proves.
It’s not a “gotcha” to claim that there might be other standards, which are meaningless to us, but somehow mean something equivalent than the concepts we already have words for. Those foreign concepts have obviously nothing to do with what we humans call power, knowledge, and love. They don’t mean anything and there’s literally no way to fill them with meaning either, since they are by definition independent of human concepts.
Claiming that god is something, but this something cannot be understood, is in all consequence an empty claim without any meaning. Easy to make, but at the end of the day says and proves nothing.
In Christianity there are several explicit or implicit definitions of good and evil and how their God judges them based on that. Therefore, concepts of morality exist in that context.
The god that gave His faithful the ten commandments and has His church promise heaven or hell depending on behavior exists outside of morality ? He literally defines it.
He/it creates and defines concepts of morality, but may not be a part of that system, or bound by those definitions. If we’re imagining a being of some kind that is (nominally) omnipotent and omnipresent, the I don’t see how we could realistically apply morality based on a mortal existence to it. How could you apply, for instance, a rule that says “don’t murder” to a thing that is incapable of death in any way that we would understand it?
I’m absolutely not a theist, but I think that exercises like this are ultimately futile. When I was a believer, this kind of mental exercise wouldn’t have made much of a dent in my belief. The nature of evil has been a study point for religious scholars for >2000 years, and mostly people ahve shrugged and said that they don’t understand, but they have faith, and that’s good enough. OTOH, I’m a sample size of one, so maybe there are people that would see this argument and question how rational their belief was.
The question whether god may understand or be bound by moral standards is irrelevant though. Apparently he doesn’t act on it. Either he doesn’t care enough to do or he can’t.
Of course one can imagine god in a way that’s compatible with our world - for example an evil god, a god that doesn’t care about humans, a god that has no relationship with the world, or a god that’s incapable of interference with it. Epicurus doesn’t say god doesn’t exist, merely the (formerly prevalent) idea of an all loving, all knowing, omnipotent creator god. That one is apparently impossible and therefore most likely doesn’t exist.
And going one step further we can say: Well okay, maybe god doesn’t exist, but apparently not in a way that’s relevant to this world. At least not beyond the idea itself. There is no tangible influence of god in this life - he doesn’t interfer (for whatever reason). And since the formerly prevalent idea of god is obviously wrong it’s hard to say if humans were ever justified in thinking we know something about god at all. (Would be a feat anyway, giving the fact that god apparently doesn’t interfer with our reality.) This however leaves very little room to justify or explain the need for religion.
When I was a believer this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I understood that we know nothing of god, cannot know anything of god, and cannot claim to say he does exist - and that religion therefore made no sense. Back then I called myself an agnostic, taking into account the possibility that, as unlikely as it might me, god could yet exist in some form. Today I don’t even believe that. The term “god” stems from a tradition of groundless and increasingly refuted attributions, and there’s just as much reason to assume the existence of such a concept as every other work of fiction out there. If you’d experience the world without the predenomination of religion you wouldn’t arrive at anything close to their idea of a god in the first place. This was my conclusion from the Epicurean paradox.
So, n=2, now we have a tie.
(Exercise like this might feel futile to you - I find them immensely interesting.)
How could you apply, for instance, a rule that says “don’t murder” to a thing that is incapable of death in any way that we would understand it?
What??!? Murdering is about ending other’s lives. If I were immortal, how does that prevent me from killing someone else who is mortal???
It’s ok to have faith which literally means you believe in something without a shred of evidence (or worse, evidence to the contrary). But again the epicurean paradox is not about the existence of god, is about defining his character
The actual “answer”, which is no answer at all, for this paradox is “god acts in mysterious ways”. That has been the cop out all religions have come up with
Murdering is about ending other’s lives.
But murder is also something that really only applies to rough equals; you wouldn’t call it murder to squish a mosquito. ‘Don’t murder’ is fundamentally a golden rule issue; you don’t want it done to you, so you shouldn’t do it to other people. If you can’t die, then that principle breaks down. (Unless there are other gods, and ‘death’ means something different to them? I think that’s getting into fantasy even more than religion usually does.)
But murder is also something that really only applies to rough equals;
Why?
you wouldn’t call it murder to squish a mosquito
I wouldn’t because killing animals is not in the definition of murder, but certainly PETA people would call me a murdered for simply eating a cow. I get there is nuance in the language but ending a life doesn’t really have much to do with me having a life as well.
‘Don’t murder’ is fundamentally a golden rule issue; you don’t want it done to you, so you shouldn’t do it to other people
You are conflating these 2; I see no relationship with these 2 concepts. I have never made a movie yet I have pirated some, do you imply I couldn’t possibly have pirated a movie since I do not have my own movie or similar intellectual property to be pirated from me?. The 10 commandments includes: “You shall not commit adultery.” If I am single, does that mean I am exempt?
I wouldn’t because killing animals is not in the definition of murder,
The definition of murder also doesn’t include a god killing another god.
You are conflating these 2; I see no relationship with these 2 concepts.
You shouldn’t pirate because, if you had intellectual property, you would not want it to be stolen. You should not commit adultery because if you were in a relationship, you would not want your partner to cheat on you. If a god can not die at all, then telling a god that killing is bad because they wouldn’t want to be killed simply isn’t going to be meaningful.
The definition of murder also doesn’t include a god killing another god.
which, nobody mentioned this far?.. you can’t make a claim and then attack it to justify your point. That is the definition of a strawman argument
If a god can not die at all, then telling a god that killing is bad because they wouldn’t want to be killed simply isn’t going to be meaningful.
So, according to you, this means an immortal god would not even understand why killing is bad? Sorry but I do not see the correlation here. Assuming your point for a moment, then none of the commandments hold any meaning to god since I cannot steal, harm or cheat an all-powerful entity.
Yes, this. This supposes that either:
A. There is the existence good and evil that supersedes the authority of God ( which means God cannot be sovereign over morality )
B. I define good and evil and then judge “god” based on my definition ( which from a moral standpoint would actually make me god )
I suspect that this really isn’t a paradox for most people because they either:
A. Look at the world and see horrible things they don’t like and then want to judge God for them ( with what authority ? )
B. They don’t believe in God to begin with but like to use this chart to re-enforce their belief that they are logically correct.
A God that literally defines good and evil by his existence ( I AM ) breaks this chart.
see horrible things they don’t like and then want to judge God for them
I wonder if there are things you’d judge god for. Is there suffering so great that you would ask “how can he let that happen”? Or is your god compatible with even the worst realities imaginable?
If the former, all we’re debating is if the suffering prevalent in our world is great enough to justify the question. And I’d personally argue if you’re not entirely ignorant to the suffering of your fellow human beings it definitely is.
If the latter, the categories of “good” and “bad” become completely meaningless. The term “god” becomes meaningless. At this point there’s no connection between our reality and whatever idea we might have of a divine power, since the two do not interfere. He is just an idea with no tangible effect on this world, I am irrelevant to him, he is irrelevant to me. The question of his existence becomes pointless.
I wonder if there are things you’d judge god for.
I often catch myself trying to do just that, and I have to humble myself and remember that I don’t even have the authority to judge other humans let alone God. It is my observation that human beings are incredibly arrogant, myself included. We are tiny specks of dust on a tiny planet that we have barely explored outside of, and we want to declare ourselves masters of the universe and holders of truth. This is a characteristic that I have observed in myself and in others that I believe goes all the way back to the temptation in Genesis 3: “ye shall be as gods”. It is in my nature to want to call the shots and decide what is right and wrong and I see myself unconsciously try to slide into that mindset on a regular basis.
Is there suffering so great that you would ask “how can he let that happen”?
This is a separate question. There is a big difference between judging God in my heart and deciding that He is wrong for allowing the suffering I am experiencing or observing, and asking why he is allowing it; Asking: “how can you let things like this happen?” “This seems to be against what I understand your nature to be?” “How can you be who you say you are and allow this?” is very different from saying, “You are wrong and I hate you for it.”. The former are genuine questions spurred by a conflict between what I understand about his nature and what I perceive from my experience. The entire book of Job revolves around these very questions and offers some interesting insights.
Or is your god compatible with even the worst realities imaginable?
God isn’t my god. He isn’t whatever I want him to be, if that were the case, I would never find myself in conflict with him. He is what he is. He is I AM.
Asking: “how can you let things like this happen?” “This seems to be against what I understand your nature to be?” “How can you be who you say you are and allow this?” is very different from saying, “You are wrong and I hate you for it.”.
The Epicurean paradox asks neither. It asks: Wait a minute - if what I think to know about you makes no sense given my reality, how can what I know about you be true?
God isn’t my god. He isn’t whatever I want him to be, if that were the case, I would never find myself in conflict with him. He is what he is. He is I AM.
If god is indeed compatible with even the worst realities imaginable, what reason do we have to believe in him in the first place? His existence (or non existence) doesn’t seem to make any difference then. Of course I understand that if you simply believe he exists nothing will ever convince you otherwise (and I wouldn’t want to convince you either), but coming from my perspective (someone who once was christian, is today atheist) this means that god has no explanatory value whatsoever. Even if he existed, I wouldn’t have to (and indeed don’t) care for him. Even if he existed, his idea of what’s wrong and what’s right apparently has nothing to do with what I think. He could just as well be an immortal alien on mars counting the grains of sand, because that’s what he deems good, and he’d be equally relevant to me. If we cannot know anything about him, there’s no reason to assume anything either. Then he is, in all effect, nothing.
From a religious perspective: Sure, logic will never disprove your faith, I get that. But in any other case, unless we start the thinking exercise on the premise that god exists, all the logical indicators point to the opposite.
A God that literally defines good and evil by his existence ( I AM ) breaks this chart.
Pretending the epicurean paradox is about the existence of god is a strawman
The entire thing is about the qualities in the character of god. Is god all knowing, all powerful and all god as he is sold to us by the Church?
Also, an even bigger strawman and circular logic to boot is your argument about being unable to “judge” god (or the expectation of his behaviour)
The concept of judging you are using seems to be that or passing sentencing. Anyone can evaluate with simple logic without being a figure of authority.
If I see a person kicking a freightened dog, I don’t need to be any authority over that person to reach the conclusion, aka “judge”, they are doing something wrong
One of the funniest things humanity has done is to invent the concept of God and reduce him/them/it to their level.
Why would a super entity be bound by “love” which only humans understand ? Why would “it” have the concept of “evil”, something that humans invented out of fear.
As a species we just need to accept we are just stupid.
And that is why religion is effectively meaningless. We have invented a being full of contradictions, much like ourselves, but declared [it|whatever] perfect besides that. The answer to the paradox is that there is no God.
People should learn to strive for good without the threat of eternal punishment from a being of their invention, otherwise those individuals were never good to begin with, and their imaginary all powerful, all knowing and judgemental god would punish them regardless.
Define “good”.
Why would a super entity be bound by “love” which only humans understand ? Why would “it” have the concept of “evil”, something that humans invented out of fear.
It doesn’t. That’s the point. The Epicurean paradox doesn’t say god doesn’t exist in some way or form, but the idea of god as someone with a relationship to humanity based on love, omnipotence and omniscience (in any way that’s meaningful to us) is apparently false.
Or from your perspective: God loves us in his way; he doesn’t love us in our way, which means we can’t expect the same mercy, the same support, the same commitment from him as we humans are capable of.
Epicurus refuted one very specific idea of god, which was prevalent at one point in time, but is today only believed by very devout evangelicals. What we today conclude from the fact that apparently no god will alleviate the suffering in this life is up to each individual.
As a species we just need to accept we are just stupid.
Or in the words of Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.”
Or in the words of (possibly or possibly not) Einstein: “Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”I agree. It is better not to assume anything and take it for a truth, but to find the truth through reliable and provable methods.
I had a conversation that ended up like this with someone who was genuinely trying to convert me to Christianity once. He eventually argued that god doesn’t need to be all powerful to be worshipped, since he is at least extremely powerful.
Sounds like he was worshipping a mid tier god. At least it’s better than those waste of space reasonably powerful ones.
The French have invented a nice too to deal with such “extremely powerful” scumbags.
Kind of falls apart if rejecting the idea of objective good and evil and interpreting the parable of the fruit of knowledge in Eden as the inheritance of a relative knowledge of good and evil for oneself which inherently makes any shared consensus utopia an impossibility.
In general, we have very bizarre constraints on what we imagine for the divine, such as it always being a dominant personality.
Is God allowed to be a sub? Where’s the world religion built around that idea?
What about the notion that the variety of life is not a test for us to pass/fail, but more like a Rorsarch test where it allows us to determine for ourselves what is good or not?
Yes, antiquated inflexible ideas don’t hold up well to scrutiny. But adopting those as the only idea to contrast with equally inflexible consideration just seems like a waste of time for everyone involved, no?
I’ve always thought the better argument was to replace ‘good and evil’ with ‘happiness and sadness’. Everything you said makes sense because good and evil are subjective, but at least everyone agrees that happiness is a goal in itself that we all strive for, regardless of what it takes to get you there personally.
If you go through this chart and use the word ‘happiness’ instead, it becomes pretty clear that god is not omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent, or we would only ever feel happiness.
I have never before encountered an “aC” dating system. A quick google shows the dates to line up with BC, but it’s still new.
heh, it’s the ante christ
“why can’t god create a boulder so heavy that even the can’t carry it?” even as a child trying to trick god with basic paradoxes sounded funny to me.
The existence of those paradoxes could also mean that omnipotence in itself is simply impossible.
Or logic is a blasphemy against god.
Then why would god create our minds and logic in the first place? Seems like he’d be setting us up for failure if he gives us tools to determine the truth which in turn seem to disprove his existence. Also not something you’d expect from an all-loving deity.
If the story of the garden of Eden is anything to go by I’d say that the creator definitely both made those things and very clearly instructed us not to use them. Either way if logic itself is evil then any logical argument cannot possibly apply to a purely good being.
Of course I’m in camp snake, I’m just playing divinity’s advocate.
I think it’s a fair assumption, it just would made god a psychopath.
Logic presupposes God. If God operates outside of time he can certainly operate outside of other frameworks we use to perceive the world. The human brain can fit in a bucket. Naturally understanding God is an impossibility.
The epicurian paradox presupposes false premises.
What if an almighty God created the universe without evil, but with free-will, and then one angel decided to challange the way God rules, so that God has to let him rules to show everyone whose way of rule is the best?
Simply killing that angel would not answer the challenge, on the contrary, killing that angel would demonstrate that God is a dictator.
Pasted from a reply to another user.
God created angels. If God created an angel which challenges them and is “evil” (saying that about some angel dude who isn’t a mass murderer like their creator according to bible records https://www.wired.com/2007/04/old-testament-m/ https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html ) then we arrive again at the Epicurean paradox.
God is already a dictator by choosing the state of everything. Designing a chaotic system and letting it run also supports being a dictator. He designed the system. An omnipotent God is unable to escape His own designs. The rebellious angel was by design. His planning thereby is guile.
If the rebellious angel was evil by design, then there is no free-will.
Omniscience is knowing all that will happen. The rebellious angel’s free-will creates a smaller God.
Prove there is free will anyways. All modern studies of the brain and consciousness indicate our free will only exists in a compatibalist way, in other words we can be free to act without another actor forcing us. But libertarian free will, such as would be required for any being to act against their “design” has no evidence whatsoever.
Still wouldn’t answer why god doesn’t interfer with evil. Why doesn’t he help us against this angel? Heals sicknesses? Stops wars? Saves victims of murder and rape?
There are many good arguments against God. This is not one of them.
It’s a slightly more complicated version of whether God can create a rock so big he cannot lift it. Can God create a universe where I simultaneously have freewill and also don’t have the ability to do anything outside his will (evil)? Can 0 equal 1? The answer to that question isn’t yes/no, it’s that the question is invalid. Freewill does not equal non-freewill. It’ll confuse some unprepared Sunday School teacher, but that’s it.
I agree, this is not a good argument against the existence of god, but it seems to be a fine argument against certain models of god. To get out of the paradox, one must be willing to give up certain notions about god. Either:
- God isn’t all knowing, so it’s unaware of all the evil in the universe.
- God doesn’t have infinite power, making god unable to create a universe without evil (perhaps due to limitations of what god can and cannot do.
- God is not entirely good or god’s definition of good does not align with what us humans have been taught. God doesn’t see evil where we see evil so it does not use its infinite power and knowledge to change it.
I think there are a lot of theists who would have trouble accepting one of these notions, which would keep them stuck within this paradox.
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The Orthodox Christian God is all knowing. Evil is the absence of Good. (e.g. darkness is the absence of light)
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Similarly this God is all powerful and has already defeated evil through the sanctification of man’s nature through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Faith and cooperation with the Holy Spirit is how man communes with God.
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Evil is the absence of good. So wherever people sin against God evil exists. Fallen beings exist as well because they too sinned against God but are eternally damned whereas man is redeemable.
God is indescribable and inconceivable. He created a church on Earth so that we can worship him. Worshipping God is good for us not just because God is good to us but because he literally is “good”. In a world without God good and evil don’t exist.
I appreciate you sharing the model of god suggested by Orthodox Christians, but I fail to see how this information alleviates the Paradox.Could you present your information in a way that relates to the Paradox? I am discussing with good faith, so I am actually curious how a person who believes the Christian model of god would find a way to solve this Paradox.
This being said, I do have some questions and comments regarding your statements.
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If god has already defeated evil through Christ, then why is evil so prevalent today, even among those who worship him? God would rather damn people to burn in hell for eternity for doing evil than remove evil from the universe all together? To me, this is, in and of itself, an evil course of action which puts to question god’s goodness.
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I am not sure if I am understanding you here. If evil is the absence of good, then does this mean that evil and good cannot coexist? In other words, can an action be both evil and good, or does every action fit in a bucket of either good or evil?
As for your final statement regarding how god is good and without god, neither good or evil can exists: I can’t help but relate this to the concept in Eastern Philosophy of ying and yang. Not sure if you are familiar with it, but the basic premise is that when you have two opposite concepts (for example, good and evil), one cannot exist without the other. For instance, if we lived in a universe that was only “good” then “good” would not exist, because without “evil” then there doesn’t exist a concept of “good”. In other words, if everything is “good” then the concept of “good” is irrelevant.
Reading your closing statement and relating it to ying/yang made me think that it kind of goes both ways. If god is good, then evil must exist for god to exist, since evil must be present for good to be present.
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There are many good arguments against God. This is not one of them.
It’s a slightly more complicated version of whether God can create a rock so big he cannot lift it.
It’s a very good argument against god, and your second statement is a great addition to it. Omnipotence in itself is impossible, as proven by the rock paradox. An omnipotent being can therefore not exist.
Your free will idea however has a very easy counter argument: If free will is the problem, then god has nothing to offer us - since in the afterlife the same rules would apply. Either a world without suffering is possible, or it isn’t. Since the afterlife isn’t known to work by taking away our free will, suffering would therefore continue to prevail there as well. If the idea of an afterlife must be possible (as seen in most organized religions) than the idea of a world without suffering must be possible, without taking away something so valuable as our freedom.
Omnipotence in itself is impossible
The question of God isn’t of perfect omnipotence but relative omnipotence. There’s plenty of room for a “Godlike” being that does not resolve the paradox of omnipotence. Hell, a guy who sits on a cloud and flings lighting bolts has been sufficient to qualify for eons.
Either a world without suffering is possible, or it isn’t
Suffering without purpose. And that’s where things get sticky. Because the argument from Evil needs to assume the recipients of suffering are innocent and undeserving. Otherwise it’s not evil, just karma.
Suffering without purpose. And that’s where things get sticky. Because the argument from Evil needs to assume the recipients of suffering are innocent and undeserving. Otherwise it’s not evil, just karma.
There’s plenty of undeserved suffering in our world, I don’t think we have to debate that. Either evil is the consequence of our free will in some convoluted way - then the same will be true in the afterlife - or a paradise without suffering is possible - then an all-loving and omnipotent god would have been able to create just that. It simply disproves the idea that our suffering was somehow unavoidable to an all-powerful god, because that doesn’t make sense withing the ideological framework of the abrahamic religions. It must be avoidable. Otherwise paradise would be unthinkable.
There’s plenty of undeserved suffering in our world, I don’t think we have to debate that.
Not casually, but as soon as you escalate the scale of the discussion to “X is True Because Evil Exists”, you’re stuck making these much more formalized and stringent responses.
And I absolutely think - particularly in an era of climate change catastrophe and ecological crisis - that you can argue our collective suffering is a collective punishment for the world we have collectively built.
Either evil is the consequence of our free will in some convoluted way
Hardly convoluted. We act upon each other. And we perceive the actions inflicted on one another as “good” and “evil”. If you want to argue a purely deterministic understanding of our behaviors, you can blame God (or the Prime Mover / First Domino / Deist Clockmaker Thing). But once you open up the idea that we own responsibility for our own actions, you abdicate The First Actor from responsibility.
It simply disproves the idea that our suffering was somehow unavoidable to an all-powerful god, because that doesn’t make sense withing the ideological framework of the abrahamic religions.
All it disproves is a particular set of assumptions that not even other Christians generally believe. Like, the idea of the Abrahamic God being cruel or capricious or personally flawed isn’t even a conclusion you can take away from a straight reading of the Bible. You need one of those Evangelical hype artists to punch up the original material in order to get there.
At the point, you’re not arguing against the existence of a deity. You’re arguing against the existence of Buddy Jesus and the big smiling sun baby from Teletubbies.
The Argument From Evil can be reduced down to “I don’t believe a God exists, because if It did I wouldn’t like It.”
Hardly convoluted.
While you’re arguing about all the parts of human suffering that can easily be attributed to humans, other forms of suffering exist as well. Think volcanoes. Think cancer. You’re not making a good argument if you’re conveniently forgetting that not all suffering has to do with our free will at all.
At the point, you’re not arguing against the existence of a deity. You’re arguing against the existence of Buddy Jesus and the big smiling sun baby from Teletubbies.
I think you’re misunderstanding the Epicurean paradox. It specifically argues against a very specific idea of god with the characteristics of being omnipotent, omniscient and all-loving at the same time. Call him “buddy jesus” if you will (some call him “God”), but that’s exactly the thought exercise we’re talking about here. No one is arguing against deities in general. The term is way too broad to have a single conversation about every potential divine entity anyway.
Think volcanoes. Think cancer.
Iceland without volcanoes looks like Greenland. Hawaii without volcanoes doesn’t exist at all. Volcanoes aren’t evil.
Similarly, cancer is result of a flaw in cellular reproduction. But these flaws in replication are also important in the means by which species evolve over time. Cancer is a consequence of an imperfect but necessary process for life to exist.
You’re discounting enormous processes that provide enormous benefits over the order of millennia to marginal discomforts experienced by tiny minorities over the course of months. Why stop at volcanoes and cancer? We could claim that teeth are evil. We could claim that fire and salt are evil. We could claim that emotions are evil.
It specifically argues against a very specific idea of god with the characteristics of being omnipotent, omniscient and all-loving at the same time.
With the conclusion that such a deity does not deserve to be worshiped, presumably because an immensely powerful but flawed being is not worthy of reciprocal love and devotion. But that’s not an argument against God, its an argument against Parents.
Even then, it makes enormous presumptions about the nature of Good and Evil. Volcanoes are Evil Because They Make Me Sad. Cancer is Evil Because It Makes Me Sad. A Perfectly Knowing And Loving God Would Have Done It Better.
It’s not a paradox so much as it is a child’s whining.
No one is arguing against deities in general.
Well, I mean… there’s the Atheists.
You’re discounting enormous processes that provide enormous benefits over the order of millennia to marginal discomforts experienced by tiny minorities over the course of months. Why stop at volcanoes and cancer? We could claim that teeth are evil. We could claim that fire and salt are evil. We could claim that emotions are evil.
If you’re seriously arguing that there is no unavoidable suffering in this world you’re very ignorant towards your fellow human beings. An omnipotent god could create a world without volcanoes and without sickness. Yet he didn’t. You’re sill not understanding even the starting point of the Epicurean paradox if you don’t get that.
With the conclusion that such a deity does not deserve to be worshiped, presumably because an immensely powerful but flawed being is not worthy of reciprocal love and devotion. But that’s not an argument against God, its an argument against Parents.
Again, you’re misunderstanding the conversation. It’s not about judgment or whining, it’s not about arguing if it’s okay for god to be how he is, it’s not about any conclusions from gods nature to anything. It’s a logical thinking exercise about the premises of the abrahamic idea of god’s characteristics and whether they make sense or not.
If the premises are: god is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, the existence of human suffering creates a paradox. (And if you’re unsure why just look at the guide above.) What you’re saying has nothing to do with that. You don’t resolve the paradox by insulting those who find it interesting to think about, you’re disqualifying from the conversation. If you believe in a god without those characteristics the Epicurean paradox says nothing about your faith at all.
In what way is this an argument against God? This is an argument against a god that is all-knowing all-powerful and all-benevolent.
Also your idea of free will is coming loaded with some major baggage.
My bad, that baggage is the capital G God primarily referring to Abrahamic tradition God. Zeus doesn’t pass the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent religion check, but Yahweh and Allah definitely have those claimed tied pretty innately to their being.
There are many good arguments against God. This is not one of them.
That is because this isn’t an argument against god. It is simply a question that resulted in a Paradox about the character of god as described by the Church
Can 0 equal 1? The answer to that question isn’t yes/no, it’s that the question is invalid.
What? the question is not invalid. it is a yes/no, the *implications" of that yes or no however can carry significant correlations
Freewill does not equal non-freewill.
yeah, nobody is making this crazy claim…
Yeah, probably would have been better to use dividing by 0 instead of 0=1 as the example, but the point still stands.
Yes/no isn’t a valid answer to a paradox. Can God create a universe where there is freewill and there isn’t freewill? Can God create a rock so large he can’t lift it? Can he shit so big he can’t flush it? All interesting, but in the end invalid questions. But shoehorning in a yes/no when the real answer is just undefined is incorrect.
It’s good fun for an internet comment section, or irritating some youth group leader, but in the end not a useful question.
I don’t get why you say they are not valid questions? I see nothing invalid in them. Instead it seems to me you seem to disagree with the consequences such “yes/no” answers carry and are preemptively dismissing them
Overall this paradox is a thought experiment, as such, even in the absence of a concrete answer, it is still a very valid and valuable question
What’s your logic with 0 = 1?
Can you restate without math?It’s similar to the “unstoppable force meets an immovable object” thought experiment.
They can’t both exist, just like 0 can’t be the same as 1. If you somehow “forced” it to be true because an all powerful deity made it so, the logic breaks, and the answer is effectively useless to us.
So then if a deity made freewill, there MUST be evil, or at least the capability of it. My metaphor is sorta inverted, but hopefully it makes sense.
It very quickly gets into philosophy. We consider the ability to do evil to be part of our free will, but we don’t consider the ability for us to do djskwjejrj to be part of our free will. We still have free will, even though we cannot djskwjejrj.
Likewise, if we lived in a world that God created without the ability to do evil, but otherwise we had free will, we wouldn’t know of the limitations to our free will - therefore we’d believe we still had it. And in that world, we may also be able to djskwjejrj.
(I just keyboard-smashed to come up with that term, hopefully the metaphor carries.)
0 and 1 are not the same thing. Can an all powerful being make them the same thing? Yes, but doing so would destroy the very concept of logic and render this whole exercise that is existence pointless. The theoretical world in which 0 and 1 are the same thing (or true and false, or hot and cold) does not rely on the rules of logic that underpin all human thought. You are looking at a return to the Ginnungagap; the void before reality. The darkness that existed before the first day.
Of course, the “free will” thingy doesn’t explain away all the bad stuff in the world. It explains why we have adultery and murder and nazis. But it doesn’t explain why babies get cancer. And the reason that babies get cancer is that the gods do not know everything, they can’t fix everything, and besides, they wouldn’t if they could because they don’t care. The paradox of baby cancer only works on monotheistic religions, and even then only a tiny percentage of them.
Alright so your argument about free will only really adds up if you are an absolutist about free will. Imagine a perfect utopian paradise of a world. All are free to do whatever they want so long as it is not “evil.” Your definition of evil can vary but presumably an omniscient god would have a pretty good idea of what that means. Rhe mwans of prevention xouls be literally anything, because y’know omnipotent and omniscient, including just creating people that simply do not have the capacity for evil. Would the people in that world not have free will? Just because there are some things they cannot do does not mean that in my eye. I can’t fly or bite my own finger off or perceive and manipulate the fabric of the universe, does that mean I don’t have free will? IMO the only way your position here is logically consistant is if you do take the absolutist position that in order to have free will you must be omnipotent yourself, otherwise there will always be things you cannot do.
I think I would say that the people living in that utopia do not have free will. Their will is not their own, it’s God’s will imposed on them. They can operate within its confines and limits, but it is externally, not internally defined.
I think you have to separate out two things that are often conflated together, freedom of will and freedom of action. The difference is with freedom of will, I can want to fly, and with freedom of action, I can fly if I want to.
It reminds me of the classic Henry Ford quote about having your car in any color you want, as long as it’s black. If I want a black car, fine. If I want a white car, that’s a problem.
That’s already the case with humans. There are things that a human CAN do that I would never do. The same goes for you and every other human. Are you saying I don’t have free will because there are actions that I COULD do but never would? Because the same goes for evil. God could have made a world where people COULD do evil things but never chose to. Therefore the only reason to have made not only people who COULD choose evil, but also people who DO choose evil, is because he wanted some people to be punished for being made in a way that they would do things he already knew they would do and chose to make them anyways.
We live in a world right now where people can do good things but don’t, and they can also do evil things, but they don’t. That’s free will.
What I am saying that free will is an internal condition, it’s yours. If an external force is placing hard limits and boundaries on your will, it fundamentally cannot be free. Best case, it’s limited. Worst case, it’s nonexistent.
The traditional definition of evil for many religions, particularly the Abrahamic ones, is anything that runs contrary to the laws/decrees of God is evil. Forced conformation to that, regardless of how it’s done, cannot leave people with free will. God creates laws. God creates a law that forces compliance to his laws. By forcing me to choose to comply, there is no real choice (another paradox), and that fundamentally is not free.
I don’t think that God in this case needs people to choose evil to punish them, but there are billions of people who think Hell is super real and probably want for both of us to burn there, and they’d probably disagree. I think it is an safer assumption to simply say if that people who make a choice, whether it’s good or evil, are better in aggregate than people who can make no choice at all.
Seem confusing?
That’s right - because anything that’s made up and subject to interpretation IS!
More like our very existence as sentient, conscious creatures on a rock orbiting a star in the vast emptiness of space contained in a umiverse doesn’t make sense in the first place, so any attempt to explain it would barely make sense anyway.
And even if it does not make sense, here we are. We ourself are the proof that things are not true or false just on the basis of our understanding of those same things.
What if an almighty God created the universe without evil but with free-will, and then one angel decided to challange the way God rule, so that God has to let him rule to show everyone whose way of rule is the best?
Simply killing that angel would not answer the challenge, on the contrary, killing that angel would demonstrate that God is a dictator.
As if the christian God had a problem with killing, considering they are a mass murderer compared to their angel.
Furthermore, why did they create an angel which became “evil” in the first place? This brings us right back to the Epicurean paradox.
Just being the devil advocate here: I disagree with the “destroy Satan” part, Satan isn’t the definition of evil, he is only the HR department that deal with the evil people, and the part of God not stopping evil, maybe he don’t because it go against free will? About the not loving, he promises a perfect infinity world after all of this, after a few centuries of perfection you don’t care/remember I guess
Good advocate. Anyway, “God not stopping evil, maybe he don’t because it go against free will” - That enters the loop at the bottom. Could God create a universe where free will exists, but evil does not exist? If yes, then why didn’t He? If He could not create such a universe, then he’s not all powerful and/or not all loving and good.
“About the not loving, he promises a perfect infinity world after all of this” - Then why do we have to go through this initial, temporary and imperfect part?
Maybe free will requires the infinite complexity of this world and hence must also contain “evil” in some way.
Then god is not all powerful
That’s trying to sidestep the answer, but it just loops back: could God create an “infinitely complex” world with free will where evil does not need to exist? I’m effectively asking the same question, “could God create a universe with free will and without evil”?
Assuming that your assertion is true, that the infinite complexity of this world must contain evil, then God is not all powerful nor all loving.
I dunno. To be all powerful does God need to be able to create paradoxes? Things that are and aren’t? I think that by limiting choices, free will is no longer fully free.
The all loving part I think gets resolved by the free will idea, too — he’s not going to step in and be a nanny.
I’m not really advocating for some biblical God, btw. Though, admittedly, I am spiritual in different senses which might overlap with the biblical God in some ways.
To be all powerful does God need to be able to create paradoxes?
To be all powerful means you literally create all the rules, including any that might lead to paradoxes, or being able to create a set of rules that lead to no paradoxes, ever.
The all loving part I think gets resolved by the free will idea, too — he’s not going to step in and be a nanny.
Again, he creates the rules, the “state machine”. If we humans can reach a “failed” (evil) state, it’s only because it’s an option that has been created.
Also, free will automatically breaks either god’s omniscience (and omnipotence) or being all-loving. If god knows everything that will ever happen, free will cannot exist except as an illusion, for everything is already predetermined. If free will exists, well, then we can safely imply that god is not all powerful, for god cannot predict our decisions.
Choices are already limited… by our brains. Some people choose to stick objects up their urethra. Based on statistical probability, I would guess you do not. Does the fact that your brain limits you from making that choice mean your will is not free? You didn’t choose which brain you would get. Or are you going to go stick something up there to prove how free you are?
Don’t appreciate (i) your disgusting example and (ii) your attitude. Most of this is obviously amounting to different interpretations of “free will” and even “omnipotence.” Ok, if it’s free with no limitations, you win, buddy. If it’s free will in the sense that, well, obviously, there are constraints, but it is precisely those constraints that give rise to different wants, desires, actions, and pursuits, and there is freedom to choose them, then ok, there might be free will. In any case, free will is vague and not precisely defined. Similarly, does omnipotence entail the ability of creating something outside of yourself? If no, then ok, the paradox stands. If not, then the paradox doesn’t.
Then in paradise there won’t be free will either, or evil will prevail there as well.
Literally advocating for the devil.
