The Problem of Evil

A

Anarcho Union

No Gods No Masters
Registered Senior Member
Okay, so what I understand of this standpoint so far is as such; If their was a totally good, flawless God then evil and suffering there for cannot exsist. Since evil and suffering do exsist, than there can be no totally good flawless God.
People then combat this with; God allows us free will which then grants us the abillity to commit evil acts. And it is our own sinful nature that causes our sufferings
But I have three responses to that.
A.) What about natural disaters? Whos free will is that impending on if stopped?
B.) Couldnt this all knowing oh-so-wonderful God still stop evil acts without imposing free will? He must not be ALL knowning.
C.) An all good God could not allow suffering to go on, even if we do have sinful natures. And doesnt the Bible say we are made in his image? And were made directly from his hands? Thus God has the abillity to do evil, and has CREATED evil beings and directly allowed evil acts to be commited.
Discussion?
 
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Anarcho Union said:
Okay, so what I understand of this standpoint so far is as such; If their was a totally good, flawless God then evil and suffering there for cannot exsist. Since evil and suffering do exsist, than there can be no totally good flawless God.
People then combat this with; God allows us free will which then grants us the abillity to commit evil acts. And it is our own sinful nature that causes our sufferings
But I have three responses to that.
A.) What about natural disaters? Whos free will is that impending on if stopped?
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Misusing free will basically means to act in a way that warrants a reaction in which we suffer. Natural disasters are but one such avenue
B.) Couldnt this all knowing oh-so-wonderful God still stop evil acts without imposing free will? He must not be ALL knowning.
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no more than he can create married bachelors or square circles
C.) An all good God could not allow suffering to go on, even if we do have sinful natures.
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sure
hence the determination that drives our sinful natures is limited
IOW sooner or later we work it out
And doesnt the Bible say we are made in his image?
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and?
And were made directly from his hands?
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so?

Thus God has the abillity to do evil, and has CREATED evil beings and directly allowed evil acts to be commited.
Discussion?
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how is the creation of a living entity with free will (ie the creation of a living entity in god's image) an evil act?
 
lightgigantic said:
Misusing free will basically means to act in a way that warrants a reaction in which we suffer. Natural disasters are but one such avenue

no more than he can create married bachelors or square circles

sure
hence the determination that drives our sinful natures is limited
IOW sooner or later we work it out

and?

so?


how is the creation of a living entity with free will (ie the creation of a living entity in god's image) an evil act?
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You confuse me...
 
lightgigantic said:
the creation of a living entity with free will (ie the creation of a living entity in god's image) an evil act?
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Because we commit evil acts, against eachother and the enviroment. God knew this would happen when He created us, thus God allowed and encouraged evil acts to be commited, this makes Him capable of evil.
 
Anarcho Union said:
Because we commit evil acts, against eachother and the enviroment.God knew this would happen when He created us, thus God allowed and encouraged evil acts to be commited, this makes Him capable of evil.
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Far from being evil ..... if all such "encouragement" is relegated to a virtual reality like environment (ie an environment where the users work under temporary identities in a virtual medium) and if a function of that environment is to deliver suffering (whether in the form of natural disasters, from other living entities or from one's own body and mind) as a consequence for misuse of free will ..... its well constructed.

Certainly better than eternally housing a bunch of fools habituated to sitting on their brain with a god that zaps away the consequences for their stupid actions .... or better than controlling a bunch of zombies that are so thoroughly orchestrated that they are incapable of free will (you couldn't really call them pious, since piety, as well as impiety, requires free will as an active ingredient in order to be a viable term)
 
Anarcho Union said:
Okay, so what I understand of this standpoint so far is as such; If their was a totally good, flawless God then evil and suffering there for cannot exsist. Since evil and suffering do exsist, than there can be no totally good flawless God.
People then combat this with; God allows us free will which then grants us the abillity to commit evil acts. And it is our own sinful nature that causes our sufferings
But I have three responses to that.
A.) What about natural disaters? Whos free will is that impending on if stopped?
B.) Couldnt this all knowing oh-so-wonderful God still stop evil acts without imposing free will? He must not be ALL knowning.
C.) An all good God could not allow suffering to go on, even if we do have sinful natures. And doesnt the Bible say we are made in his image? And were made directly from his hands? Thus God has the abillity to do evil, and has CREATED evil beings and directly allowed evil acts to be commited.
Discussion?
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I do not believe in Bible God but in a sense, the Bible, if read right, shows God as doing evil so it can be said from it's POV that we are truly made in God's image. perhaps the ancients recognized this and we have forgotten.

You have to read the Bible with blinders on if you can read it and not see the times where God acts in a purely evil way.

In that sense, I have no problem with evil in the Bible or God.

As to natural disasters, they are just that. For something to be called evil or a sin, it must have evil intent and nature has no intention. it just does what it does thoughlessly.

I have no problem with explaining evil in man as well. God or no God.

We are evolving creatures and animals. Animals, as they evolve have only two choices they can make while living. Cooperate or compete. Cooperation can be seen as good and competing can be seen as evil.

We also have no choice in this. We will and have to do one or the other and we usually do some of both every day whether we realize it or not.
This was also recognized in the past although they did not see evolution the way we see it today. They were right in saying that all men are born with evil in them but the religious accentuate the evil and not the good because evil brings in more $$$ and creates a dependance on the clergy as our $$$ are supposed to buy us forgiveness and a slot in heaven.

Religions, for this cause are unconscionable. God will send them to hell.
Oops. there is no hell.

Regards
DL
 
God also created many angels in heaven before he created the earth. He also gave them free will. When God created the earth, Some of the angels rebelled. Why is, as far as I know, unclear, what matters is that they have the freedom to do so. Stan in particular challenged Gods authority to "rule" over humans. He claimed that if God left humans to their own devices, they would stop worshiping him, and that they would be fine on their own. And that God should abandon them. God argued that humans were not capable of governing themselves and needed his guidance to avoid destroying themselves. God also claimed that if left alone, humans would still love him. This "argument" between God and Satan was a result of Satans deeds in The Garden of Eden, when he got Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Satan thought that that deed would be enough for God to abandon and/or destroy humans. But God loved us too much. So he had to accept Satans challenge. Basically, Satan proved that people will turn against god if given the chance, but God didn't believe that all humans would do this, so the terms of the challenge were that god would step back from the affairs of humans and allow Satan to try to lead as many humans away from God as possible. That is where evil comes from. It is, in a sense, a test. Every bad thing that happens is Satans doing on earth. It is his attempt to get people to disbelieve in God. And every person who disbelieves in God because of evil in the world prove Satan right, but every human who stays faithful in the face of hardship and evil, prove God right.

The bible also says that a time will come when God will intervene and put a stop to this and destroy Satan. God is all knowing, but just because he can look into the future, doesn't mean that he does so. He could if he wanted to, but he chooses not to.

The Book of Job in the old testament attests to a lot of this. Job was a very faithful man who seemed to have everything a person could ever want or need. And Satan challenged God and Said, "The only reason he is so faithful is because he has such a great life. Take away his riches and he will hate you." So God allowed Satan to go to earth and just destroy everything in Jobs life. Job nearly abandons his faith in God, but in the end, his faith prevails. It's a hard book to read because it was originally a poem, and it doesn't really translate to well into English.

If you're interested, just read Genesis, Job, and Revelations. Cross reference a lot of the passages to other books.
 
Anarcho Union said:
Okay, so what I understand of this standpoint so far is as such; If their was a totally good, flawless God then evil and suffering there for cannot exsist. Since evil and suffering do exsist, than there can be no totally good flawless God.
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Suffering certainly exists. But there are different types of suffering, some you cant get rid of. For example: you need to feel pain because you wouldnt know there was something wrong with you. Mental anguish: Meh, this is a little more tricky but is a necessary part of the human condition so we need that too. Well, we are not going to get rid of suffering from common occurrence weather we want to or not. We can desist from being the cause of suffering though.

Physical pain and suffering inflicted on another is a whole nother ball of wax. Here is where you inject the term "evil" and state:
Since evil and suffering do exsis(exist)
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The more aware you become, the more knowledgeable, the more advanced (we can say), the more you realize the term "evil" should be dropped. It is just a matter of mental fitness...the one who harms another weather it be through actions or words (not accounting for self defense) is just a sign of mental problems. Some severe and some fairly minor and their actions reflect this paradigm.

In conclusion: Can we say "this person is "evil"? I dont see how when the explanation is they are mentally disturbed, in one way or another. Why add to it? In fact, the addition can be dtrimental if we look at case histories of say someone like Richard Remirez or Charles Manson because your giving more of a supernatural aspect\connotation and perhaps some excuse to someone who is mentally damaged calling them "evil" may introduce some glorification where it is not warranted. To show this we can look at medications that alleviate (to an extent and sometimes entirely but i am not knowledgeable enough to speak on this aspect and maybe they will improve but they do seem to help.)

This gets heavily into psychology and the more you understand it the more you see evil is only real in a persons mind. Do you believe in possession? Do you believe in satan? IDK, what the hell is Satan doing down there with his pitchfork and for what purpose? To make humans do bad.:rolleyes:

I should add that not all people with mental problems do bad things and that should go without saying. Here it is referenced in the context of the thread and many dont hurt anyone or themselves at all so we are focused more on the criminal aspects of it \ "evil".
 
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skaught

Are you saying that Satan tempted and taunted God and God fell for the temptation .

Whose the boss?

Regards
DL
 
Just as God has been disproved, so is Satan and whatever is said to have come from God; thus, it is of no use to build further scenarios or structures upon these myths.
 
SciWriter said:
Just as God has been disproved, so is Satan and whatever is said to have come from God; thus, it is of no use to build further scenarios or structures upon these myths.
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When you talk of god being disproved, you do atheism a great dis-service :

To know that a transcendent God does not exist would require a perfect knowledge of all things (omniscience). To attain this knowledge would require simultaneous access to all parts of the world and beyond (omnipresence). Therefore, to be certain of your claim one would have to possess godlike characteristics. Obviously, mankind's limited nature precludes these special abilities. Your dogmatic claim is therefore unjustifiable. As logician Mortimer Adler has pointed out, the atheist's attempt to prove a universal negative is a self-defeating proposition.
 
lightgigantic said:
When you talk of god being disproved, you do atheism a great dis-service :

To know that a transcendent God does not exist would require a perfect knowledge of all things (omniscience). To attain this knowledge would require simultaneous access to all parts of the world and beyond (omnipresence). Therefore, to be certain of your claim one would have to possess godlike characteristics. Obviously, mankind's limited nature precludes these special abilities. Your dogmatic claim is therefore unjustifiable. As logician Mortimer Adler has pointed out, the atheist's attempt to prove a universal negative is a self-defeating proposition.
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Not if the universal negative is self-contradictory, which is the only possible way.
 
Greatest I am said:
skaught

Are you saying that Satan tempted and taunted God and God fell for the temptation .

Whose the boss?

Regards
DL
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No. I'm saying Satan challenged god. He said that Humans would abandon god if given the chance. He proved this to some extent by getting Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. But God felt that abandoning all of humanity because of one mistake by the first people was unfair. So he let them live and allowed Satan to try and misguide people.

Understand, I'm not a Christian, just a theologian.
 
skaught said:
No. I'm saying Satan challenged god. He said that Humans would abandon god if given the chance. He proved this to some extent by getting Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. But God felt that abandoning all of humanity because of one mistake by the first people was unfair. So he let them live and allowed Satan to try and misguide people.

Understand, I'm not a Christian, just a theologian.
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None of this is in scripture and scripture tells us to not add information.

Further, the older Hebrew and Jewish traditions did not see Eden as our fall but as out elevation form dumb animals with no moral sense to ---be as God's, knowing good and evil.

The Christian church turned it into a fall because there are more $$$ in it for them.

To have God place Satan with his new proto human children would be like you as a parent leaving a loaded gun beside your 4 year old. Insanity.

Rethink with the following type of scenario in mind and a rite of passage within an old myth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

Regards
DL
 
Naw, I really don't care enough. Theres thousands of ways to interpret the bible. It doesn't really matter though, because its fiction.
 
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