Did Epicurus disprove God?

[Azekual]

Playing the devil's advocate for God. That's funny.

Thank you, I'm here til Friday!

 

[Otherright]

3: God makes your DNA and this is somewhat responsible for your actions. So God has some choice in how good you are. Is this free will? Why can't God make us good as he possibly can? DNA will not completely determine the kind of person you are, but it will sure make being good easier.

Not as much as you think. DNA only gives you a genetic predisposition. It doesn't define your actions. I come from a family with a legacy of brutality that is almost unbelievable. One wrong word on the right day could literally put you in a very bad situation. I, however, through learning and discipline, am nothing like that. I make that choice and am thankful for the wisdom to do so.

 

[Otherright]

The fact that we have emotion and physical sensations (pain, pleasure, etc) means we will never have full control over our decisions. Is this free will? Why couldn't God have given us the types of emotions that allow us to have complete control over our actions?

Sure we do. Its a matter of choice, discipline, and egolessness. If you can detach yourself from the emotion, it has no input to your decisions.

 

[Azekual]

1: Not all suffering is a result of human beings. Take elephantitis for example.

I don't understand this example. please clarify.

2: Since God knows the future, he already know what choices you will make when he places you in the womb of a certain mother. Does that sound like free will to you? Why don't God make someone born in an environment where they are more likely to come out of life as better people, and not put people into environments that have a high probability of messing them up?

Your assuming God is willing to spoil us with short term pleasure at the risk of letting his goal to grant us immortality fall through?
If God controls everything, our lives further his goal. Which to be honest is goal I'm comfortable being a pawn for, as it benefits me in the end (assuming this is all real). A few crappy decades are worth immortality.

3: God makes your DNA and this is somewhat responsible for your actions. So God has some choice in how good you are. Is this free will? Why can't God make us good as he possibly can? DNA will not completely determine the kind of person you are, but it will sure make being good easier.

Genetics give us a starting point, how we adapt with them is our choice.
Also, God can only do so much with your DNA (if he constructs it at all). The material for your DNA exists within your parent's DNA. If God didn't follow that rule, evolution and adaptation wouldn't work (more so evolution).

4: The fact that we have emotion and physical sensations (pain, pleasure, etc) means we will never have full control over our decisions. Is this free will? Why couldn't God have given us the types of emotions that allow us to have complete control over our actions?

Because of evolution. Emotions are an extension of instinct, which are rooted in your DNA. Also emotions play a big part in society, it keeps it dynamic and changing on the individual level (which has a ripple effect on all of society in some way) according to the Symbolic-Interaction paradigm of Sociology (and the Chaos Theory of mathematics). Removing emotion, especially love , would have prevented societies from forming as people wouldn't have bonded with each other. It is impossible to "control" emotions, you can suppress your reaction to them, but you can't control them.

With one exception: Sociopaths can control their emotions and even turn them off for short periods of time. As a side effect, sociopaths tend to have weak emotions and are have difficulty relating to other people. It's a miserable existence.

5: If God stops everyone from doing anything bad, that destroys free will, but maybe he doesn't have to go that far. Maybe he can let people make all the personal choices they want but keep them from harming other. If it is still against free will to keep people from harming others every single time, then why not just keep the really bad things from happening? Maybe God won't keep you from taking meth, or taking a purse from an old lady, but he might just want to prevent the holocaust because it tore down so many people? God has been known to intervene in historical events before.

Read my answer to your second question. If God intervenes, it would only be to further his goal of restoring our Immortality.

6: By using the free will argument you are arguing that the only way to eradicate evil is to eliminate something very good (free will) so God cannot completely eradicate evil. This argument assumes that there are things God cannot do which contradicts his omnipotence. If God is omnipotent, why can't he eradicate evil without harming free will?

God's word is law and God bound himself to never break his word. He swore to never take away free will.
Also you assume that free will and Evil are not tools God use to bring us closer to immortality.

 

[waitasec]

Epicurus said: God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

I suspect that he was right. Do you think he disproved God?

i think he proved gods indifference

 

[BruceDLimber]

Whence ... is evil?

Very simple.

I quote the Baha'i scriptures:


Chapter 74. THE NONEXISTENCE OF EVIL

“The true explanation of this subject is very difficult. Know that beings are of two kinds: material and spiritual, those perceptible to the senses and those intellectual.
“Things which are sensible are those which are perceived by the five exterior senses; thus those outward existences which the eyes see are called sensible. Intellectual things are those which have no outward existence but are conceptions of the mind. For example, mind itself is an intellectual thing which has no outward existence. All man's characteristics and qualities form an intellectual existence and are not sensible.
“Briefly, the intellectual realities, such as all the qualities and admirable perfections of man, are purely good, and exist. Evil is simply their nonexistence. So ignorance is the want of knowledge; error is the want of guidance; forgetfulness is the want of memory; stupidity is the want of good sense. All these things have no real existence.
“In the same way, the sensible realities are absolutely good, and evil is due to their nonexistence—that is to say, blindness is the want of sight, deafness is the want of hearing, poverty is the want of wealth, illness is the want of health, death is the want of life, and weakness is the want of strength.
“Nevertheless a doubt occurs to the mind—that is, scorpions and serpents are poisonous. Are they good or evil, for they are existing beings? Yes, a scorpion is evil in relation to man; a serpent is evil in relation to man; but in relation to themselves they are not evil, for their poison is their weapon, and by their sting they defend themselves. But as the elements of their poison do not agree with our elements—that is to say, as there is antagonism between these different elements, therefore, this antagonism is evil; but in reality as regards themselves they are good.
“The epitome of this discourse is that it is possible that one thing in relation to another may be evil, and at the same time within the limits of its proper being it may not be evil. Then it is proved that there is no evil in existence; all that God created He created good. This evil is nothingness; so death is the absence of life. When man no longer receives life, he dies. Darkness is the absence of light: when there is no light, there is darkness. Light is an existing thing, but darkness is nonexistent. Wealth is an existing thing, but poverty is nonexisting.
“Then it is evident that all evils return to nonexistence. Good exists; evil is nonexistent.”
— Some Answered Questions, pp. 282-284

Best!

Bruce

 

[dust1n]

Logic cannot logically exist to those who follow an inconsistent set of un-evolved apparatuses.

I hope you have the logic to back that up.

 

[dust1n]

If he is not willing, but able, that doesn't necessarily make God malevolent. "Evil" could easily be an illusion fabricated by an omnipotent being to test the faith of his creations, offer said creations a choice, and/or give his creations "balance"

I don't think Epicurus was basing his argument on the assumption that evil is an illusion fabricated. Suffering.. pretty real and inevitable thing. Quite a malevolent illusion God made for us. At best, he's not malevolent, he's passive. Doesn't the Bible say something about those who are lukewarm?

 

[Benhamine]

It is an argument against a god that is omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. All powerful, all knowing and all loving. It is argued that such a god with those three omni's cannot logically exist.

Agreed, What it proves is that if there is a god, at most it can only be 2 of the 3. If the god were omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, our universe would be much different.

You do realize that suffering is the result of human beings, and that to fix it as you describe God would have to take away free will and make us into robots who only do what's right? To me that would be malevolent.

This cliche answer has never made much sense to me. If you believe there's a God then it didn't give us full free will. It limited our options from the very start. It didn't give us the option to choose to fly or to choose to bring stuff into existence. Also, our free will is limited by the actions of those around us. For instance I may have wanted to go see a certain movie at my local movie theatre but they weren't playing it there. The free will it gave us would be the free will to choose between a set of given choices. Why is it so hard to believe we could still have "free will" without the choices that cause pain, suffering, etc. Also for those stating that Man created evil, if god were the fab 3 listed above then knowing all he would know that we would do that, being all powerful he would have the ability to make a universe where we had free will if he wanted and set it up so that we couldn't cause suffering to each other and suffering wouldn't come to us, and being all good he would want to do this.

-Benhamine

 

[Blackdog22]

Not as much as you think. DNA only gives you a genetic predisposition. It doesn't define your actions. I come from a family with a legacy of brutality that is almost unbelievable. One wrong word on the right day could literally put you in a very bad situation. I, however, through learning and discipline, am nothing like that. I make that choice and am thankful for the wisdom to do so.

Genetics don't always pass along in a straight line. There is variance. In a family of alcoholics only 50% may have a very strong tendancy toward alcoholism, it isn't exactly 100% though. You may be more able to fight off angry actions than other members of your family. Also what about people genetically predisposed to anxiety and depression? Do they have freewill to be happy and not anxious? Not really.. Do diabetics have freewill to eat sugar all day long? No. Would someone with Wilsons disease have the ability to eat high copper foods without the use of chelators? No. Our genetics truly do limit our freedom to live and express ourselves as we would like it and only one being can be blamed for that (assuming God actually exists.).

 

[Blackdog22]

Sure we do. Its a matter of choice, discipline, and egolessness. If you can detach yourself from the emotion, it has no input to your decisions.

I dunno, if someone was cutting your leg off you may start screaming. Just saying... Some emotions are so strong that we are truly robbed of any will to react differently. If your in pain, your freedom to enjoy a pain free life has just been compromised. I could make the same arguments for nearly any situation.

 

[Willamena]

So you don't think God is omnipotent or omnibenevolent?

I think that "omnibenevolence" is a word someone made up --made to look like other words --in an argument that pitted "good" against omnipotence/omniscience/omnipresence (which are one thing). I think the latter (omnipotence/omniscience/omnipresence) is a lovely image of God.

 

[Dan4reason]

If he is not willing, but able, that doesn't necessarily make God malevolent. "Evil" could easily be an illusion fabricated by an omnipotent being to test the faith of his creations, offer said creations a choice, and/or give his creations "balance"

If God would deceive us like this then I certainly say that he no longer deserves our faith. Why should we have faith in a person with a track record of deception? So what God is looking for are people who will blindly follow him no matter how deceptive he is? And you are claiming that this God is omnibenevolent? Good luck.

 

[Dan4reason]

If this is the case, then there is no such instance of free will. IF you were doomed to hell, then you were so from the beginning, and there was nothing you could've done about it.

It is said in the bible that God knows everything, and also knows the future.

 

[idav]

Omnipresent means he's everywhere. Omnipotent means he's all powerful.

Check your Omni's

I didn't say omnipresent. Thanks for caring though.

 

[idav]

I don't think Epicurus was basing his argument on the assumption that evil is an illusion fabricated. Suffering.. pretty real and inevitable thing. Quite a malevolent illusion God made for us. At best, he's not malevolent, he's passive. Doesn't the Bible say something about those who are lukewarm?

So you don't think that god is malevolent if god knows evil is happening but doesn't do anything about it even though he can. Would god just sit back knowing rape, murder or worse is happening if he were all loving?

 

[Willamena]

I didn't say omnipresent. Thanks for caring though.

Yeah, you did.

 

[idav]

I think that "omnibenevolence" is a word someone made up --made to look like other words --in an argument that pitted "good" against omnipotence/omniscience/omnipresence (which are one thing). I think the latter (omnipotence/omniscience/omnipresence) is a lovely image of God.

The argument is that omnipotent and omniscient are not compatible. I would find it weird for an omnipotent being to make it so he can't make anymore future choices but what do I know.

 

[idav]

Yeah, you did.

Oh **** I meant omnipotent. I even looked at again. haha

 

[The Sum of Awe]

It is an argument against a god that is omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. All powerful, all knowing and all loving. It is argued that such a god with those three omni's cannot logically exist.

The Bible says it is possible.