Logical Problem of Evil

[Meow Mix]

I'm sorry if this topic has [probably] been done to death on this board but it's one of my favorite subjects with respect to Christianity and I thought I would bring it up.

Epicurus put the problem fairly well when he supposedly said:

If God is willing to prevent evil but unable,
Then He is impotent.
If He is able but not willing,
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing,
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing,
Then why call Him God?

Now, rather than get into the whole debate over what "evil" means, I'm going to make this a little easier by simply talking about suffering. I think most of us can probably agree that suffering is undesirable and that a being which causes or allows unnecessary suffering can't possibly fulfill the definition of "benevolent."

Thus we arrive at the question: if God is omnipotent (can actualize any logically possible state of affairs), omniscient (absolutely knows all possible states of affairs), and omnibenevolent (never malevolent), then why does suffering exist in the actual world?

I'll pre-emptively remove the most typical response: that of the "free will" theodicy. Suffering isn't entirely explained by the existence of human free choice -- after all, what free choice was responsible for, say, child leukemia? Beyond that, an omnipotent being should be able to create a world in which there is no physical suffering that remains conducive to free will.

I could go on, but I'd rather focus on responses as they come. Thoughts?

[Flail]

To Zzyzx, morals are subjective. He decides for himself what he regards as moral. The obvious concern is that we must hope Zzyzx does not decide child molestation, murder, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and/or genocide are moral. If he has no basis for his morals, they would be completely arbitrary and would result in whatever fits his needs.

Partly true, but not totally. Morality is a culturally conditioned response To a large extent, morality gets defined by the culture you are in. There are disagreements between individuals about what is moral and what is not moral. This disagreement can cause what is considered moral in a society to evolve over time.

It is not completely arbitrary, because if a set of morals causes social disruption, those morals get abandoned, and a more stable set gets adopted by the culture.

your arguments are what would be considered a 'straw man'. It is a total misrepresentation.

hmmm...if we let society define what is moral, we still are left with cannablism, genocide, widow immolation, child molestation, community suicide, etc., etc. Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Please verify with evidence without begging the question.

Morals are social constructs...implied contracts we develop over time from common sense and the desire for societal peace and order...some find it necessary to put a 'God' behind such ideas in order to make them more compelling, perhaps more enforceable. The trouble comes when these 'Gods' develop a system of forgiveness upon membership, wherein for the price of a membership and some memorized rituals a transgressor comes to feel absolved from his egregious conduct, lessening the motivation to refrain from repeating it. With Christianity and Islam at the forefront of such 'God systems', we have continued to degrade our willingness to abide by the moral rules we promulgate.

If you refuse to put a 'God' in your guilt system and have no supernatural beings to hand off your 'sins' to, you are left with yourself to atone your guilt and to pull yourself together, to get hold of yourself....a natural and much better system of avoiding bad conduct IMO, than dogma, indoctrination and ritual practices.

[cholland]

To Zzyzx, morals are subjective. He decides for himself what he regards as moral. The obvious concern is that we must hope Zzyzx does not decide child molestation, murder, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and/or genocide are moral. If he has no basis for his morals, they would be completely arbitrary and would result in whatever fits his needs.

Partly true, but not totally. Morality is a culturally conditioned response To a large extent, morality gets defined by the culture you are in. There are disagreements between individuals about what is moral and what is not moral. This disagreement can cause what is considered moral in a society to evolve over time.

It is not completely arbitrary, because if a set of morals causes social disruption, those morals get abandoned, and a more stable set gets adopted by the culture.

your arguments are what would be considered a 'straw man'. It is a total misrepresentation.

hmmm...if we let society define what is moral, we still are left with cannablism, genocide, widow immolation, child molestation, community suicide, etc., etc. Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Please verify with evidence without begging the question.

Morals are social constructs...implied contracts we develop over time from common sense and the desire for societal peace and order...some find it necessary to put a 'God' behind such ideas in order to make them more compelling, perhaps more enforceable. The trouble comes when these 'Gods' develop a system of forgiveness upon membership, wherein for the price of a membership and some memorized rituals a transgressor comes to feel absolved from his egregious conduct, lessening the motivation to refrain from repeating it. With Christianity and Islam at the forefront of such 'God systems', we have continued to degrade our willingness to abide by the moral rules we promulgate.

If you refuse to put a 'God' in your guilt system and have no supernatural beings to hand off your 'sins' to, you are left with yourself to atone your guilt and to pull yourself together, to get hold of yourself....a natural and much better system of avoiding bad conduct IMO, than dogma, indoctrination and ritual practices.

wow...thanks so much for answering my question. Oh wait, we just went in a full circle back to morality based on the individual and morality based on the society. Both hold cannablism, genocide, widow immolation, child molestation, community suicide, etc., etc. as good things. Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Have we reached the peak of moral humanity? Please verify your answer with evidence.

For example, pederasty was morally good or at lease acceptable in Ancient Greece and Rome. pederasty:antiquity::____:today

[Titiksha]

I'm sorry if this topic has [probably] been done to death on this board but it's one of my favorite subjects with respect to Christianity and I thought I would bring it up.

Epicurus put the problem fairly well when he supposedly said:

If God is willing to prevent evil but unable,
Then He is impotent.
If He is able but not willing,
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing,
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing,
Then why call Him God?

Now, rather than get into the whole debate over what "evil" means, I'm going to make this a little easier by simply talking about suffering. I think most of us can probably agree that suffering is undesirable and that a being which causes or allows unnecessary suffering can't possibly fulfill the definition of "benevolent."

Thus we arrive at the question: if God is omnipotent (can actualize any logically possible state of affairs), omniscient (absolutely knows all possible states of affairs), and omnibenevolent (never malevolent), then why does suffering exist in the actual world?

I'll pre-emptively remove the most typical response: that of the "free will" theodicy. Suffering isn't entirely explained by the existence of human free choice -- after all, what free choice was responsible for, say, child leukemia? Beyond that, an omnipotent being should be able to create a world in which there is no physical suffering that remains conducive to free will.

I could go on, but I'd rather focus on responses as they come. Thoughts?

Well, I myself believe skeptically in God, so henceforth I'd better precede to state my views over this discussions with what I'd observed from my daily life and my own believes.

I think we suffer because of two reasons-

1. We are too pathetic to oppose and fight with what all injustice is happening to us. As for example, why do river always flow downwards? because it never try to float upward. It's helpless or rather weak [ just giving an example, don't include concept of gravity here].

2. We believe ourselves to be very strong enough to overcome any sort of barriers that would recide in our way. For example a warrior is sure of his power and challenges the other to make him lose the war. But over time, when he starts losing his power and gets wrapped up with stains of blood, he starts experiencing what are sufferings and he starts praying for his survival.
What I mean to say here is, when, for whatever reason, we starts believing that we're too powerful to get bothered by any problem[accept it or not but we all do thinks this way for what we are good at], the world starts challenging us. Some people do are able to win over that then, but many are not.

And as for saying that if God has power, then why don't he disappear all the sufferings from this world, I think that is because he want to make us strong. He don't want us to lose, though many of us do. And if you see, Jesus also suffered a lot, being God himself, and that too much more than we could ever. But in the end, he won, because he was determined to win. He knew he is strong and can overcome any sort of suffering, and a lot many challenges emerged in front of himself.

[Woland]

we just went in a full circle back to morality based on the individual and morality based on the society.

Like it or not, it seems that this is where most people get their own moral values from, yes.

Some people look to ancient books depicting bloodthirsty gods who order genocides and lethal torture.

Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Have we reached the peak of moral humanity? Please verify your answer with evidence.

For example, pederasty was morally good or at lease acceptable in Ancient Greece and Rome. pederasty:antiquity::____:today

Give me a definition of morality that isn't fallacious in assuming that your favorite god concept exists in reality, and I'll answer your questions as best I can.

-Woland

[Zzyzx]

.

I am more that willing to debate whether "Intelligent design" is a valid concept. Care to try that in Closely Monitored Head to Head?

I accept.

Excellent. I suggest that the topic be "Is Intelligent Design a valid concept to explain the origin of the universe and its contents?"

Do you find acceptable the title and:

1. Ten posts total (five each)
2. No personal comments
3. All claims and statements to be substantiated or formally withdrawn / retracted
4. Bible is not to be considered any more authoritative than any other book (similar to C&A)

If agreeable, you can request that Otseng grant you "One on one participant" status, open the thread with the above title, and present your opening post / argument.

But you must be aware that you are in a debate forum and that you are expected to present counter-claim and proof on why you need or have to"reject" the evidence/arguments presented for any claims by Christian debater.

Kindly cite a Forum Rule or Guideline that specifies that requirement or expectation. That you may "expect" or prefer is of no consequence whatsoever.

You are not addressing a novice. Many "challengers" have come and gone " none of the Fundamentalists / Biblicists / Literalists stay very long (check the date joined to verify).

With That I mean, you are expected to present your counter-evidence and/or counter-arguments that are essential in establishing your grounds for rejection.

My grounds for acceptance or rejection of claims of knowledge are very simple " either you can SHOW that what you claim or tell is true and accurate or you cannot.

There is no requirement that I present "counter-evidence" when claims of knowledge cannot be shown to be truthful and accurate.

A mere statement such as"the claims of KNOWLEDGE of supernatural characters and events cannot / have not been shown to be anything more than opinion and overactive imagination (often based upon reading ancient texts claiming knowledge that cannot be shown to be anything more than opinion and overactive imagination" is clearly unacceptable.

It may be "unacceptable" to you, but that is of no consequence to one (me in this instance) who is concerned about READERS rather than "opponents"

[Shermana]

"Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable?"

100 years from now, billions of starving people might look back as they eat their soilent green and say "What were those wasteful ingrates doing burying all those bodies! (And Cremating too! Talk about BBqing with no one to party!) All that Protein gone to waste. The Aztecs had it right!"

Every child that starves to death that could have eaten a plate of Soilent Green is a potential moral outrage...to a cannibal.

[Zzyzx]

.

I would argue that God limited His power to dominate our will (which is the ultimate display of omnipotence, IMO), in order to preserve the freedom of a creation that has the capacity to choose love or evil.

That is interesting speculation.

Since no one knows the mind of "god" it is PURE speculation. That it fits someone's argument is no indication that it is true -- but is just something to say (speculate) that "explains" by guessing (not knowing).

[Zzyzx]

.

hmmm...if we let society define what is moral, we still are left with cannablism, genocide, widow immolation, child molestation, community suicide, etc., etc.

Society DOES define what is moral. Notice that there are many societies that do not worship the Christian "god" or perhaps any "god". Is there evidence to show that societies that claim to worship "gods" are more "moral" than others?

Are there examples of present cannibalism, promoted or conducted by those societies?

Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Please verify with evidence without begging the question.

Probably. the morals of society change over time. I refuse to speculate but leave that to those who are more prone to speculation (and do not necessarily agree with their guesses).

The morals of religionists and religions change over time.

[cholland]

we just went in a full circle back to morality based on the individual and morality based on the society.

Like it or not, it seems that this is where most people get their own moral values from, yes.

Some people look to ancient books depicting bloodthirsty gods who order genocides and lethal torture.

Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Have we reached the peak of moral humanity? Please verify your answer with evidence.

For example, pederasty was morally good or at lease acceptable in Ancient Greece and Rome. pederasty:antiquity::____:today

Give me a definition of morality that isn't fallacious in assuming that your favorite god concept exists in reality, and I'll answer your questions as best I can.

-Woland

By all means, use your own definition. I just ask that you don't beg the question since that is, as you said, fallacious.

[cholland]

.

hmmm...if we let society define what is moral, we still are left with cannablism, genocide, widow immolation, child molestation, community suicide, etc., etc.

Society DOES define what is moral. Notice that there are many societies that do not worship the Christian "god" or perhaps any "god". Is there evidence to show that societies that claim to worship "gods" are more "moral" than others?

Are there examples of present cannibalism, promoted or conducted by those societies?

That's irrelevant. If society defines what is moral, then cannibalism within that particular society was (by your definition) moral. Child molestation was moral within other societies. Eating a defeated enemy was moral in other societies. Murdering thousands of Jews was moral in another society. etc. etc. Do you think what you think is moral today will be tomorrow? 10 years from now? 100 years?

Are we doing anything today that 100 years from now would be considered detestable? Please verify with evidence without begging the question.

Probably. the morals of society change over time. I refuse to speculate but leave that to those who are more prone to speculation (and do not necessarily agree with their guesses).

The morals of religionists and religions change over time.

You really lost me there. Are you agnostic about morals? You leave morals to others and then don't necessarily agree with them? Is someone raping your wife a bad thing? Will it be tomorrow? Please provide evidence that it is or not.