CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Well maybe God likes playing dice with the universe.
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The Problem of Evil
- Thread starter CynthiaCypher
- Start date
Koldo
Outstanding Member
You have not.
But you keep barging in into my conversation with people who ( at least for the sake of this topic ) do stand by the premise that god is omnibenevolent.
So, to continue my argument, I have to continue to argue against the existence of the omnimax god which is omnibenevolent.
Why do you insist on trying to refute what I am saying if you keep sidestepping what I am talking about? This is a fruitless endeavor. Because we will always come back to the same point.
No **** ... I could give someone a piece of candy without slapping them ... gosh, decades of existence and I never figured that out.
The possibility that Free will allows all kinds of choices is what exactly?
There is no point to be missed here, its an obvious reality of free will.
Free will is the ability to make MANY choices, and what you are arguing here is they Free will should NOT be allowed to make bad choices. Then its not free will.
And if YOU or I make a bad choice, how is that God's fault rather than yours or mine?
Right, God's benevolence is giving us the ability to discern that slapping someone isn't necessary to give them candy, and in the high unlikely circumstances that you are one of the people who actually thought this was a 'good' choice, and apologize for it.
The entire premise of free will is that we CAN make good and bad choices. The benevolence is allowing us not to be solely defined ONLY BY OUR MISTAKES.
And in the end? We return to God for an eternity. Where we are relieved from suffering. No matter how bad it is down here - its stops. Forever.
The gist of your 'lack of benevolence' seem to be that enduring the cold between running from your front door to the warmed started car is unbearable. In 24 hours I was cold for five seconds. That seems more like an immature whine rather than an legitimate grievance about a lack of benevolence.
Indeed, you should not even be able to whine about that sort of thing as it totally lacks benevolence!
"For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day." (2 Timothy 1:12)
"And because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal. But the word of God cannot be chained." (2 Timothy 2:9)
In short, anything even remotely bad that happens to you will be proof enough for you deny God forever ... even if he showed up and slapped you in the face, saying I am real, and handed you a piece of candy?
This life isn't meant to be free of suffering, eternity is.
This life has purpose. And I am pretty sure that purpose is not sitting around whining about things that you blame God for when you don't even believe in God.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Bad? No. Just not omnibenevolent.
the problem with illogical realities like omnibenevolence is that as soon as you find something that YOU think is not benevolent .. it is anyway, and you simply haven't discerned the real reasoning behind it.
You cannot disprove onmibenevolence.
Not unless your intellect grape all the people on the earth and all the complex interactions and consequences over the period of each person entire life ... and that requires omniscience ... and how the single act never produces anything good for anyone.
God cares about all. Not one.
And what is bad for one, may be good for MANY.
Yoru status as a murder victim in Seirra Leon may part of the galvanization of resistance that lead to the crushing of the LRA. How do you know its not?
Unless you are omniscient, you cannot disprove omnibenevolence. Its just not possible.
So again, why do atheists waste so much time into hypotheticals that ultimately prove nothing?
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Depends on what you mean by 'bad' choices.
You and I seem to have different ideas on what are 'bad' choices.
It is not about blaming anyone. Not at all.
Why can't this life be free of suffering?
What is wrong with a life free of suffering?
You said that eternity is free of suffering.
Do we still have free will after we die?
Why must we endure this existence if we could simply begin our lives on heavens in the first place?
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Please explain why God should consider mere well-being as the greatest good or the highest priority.
I have been very clear and clearly repeated the statement that some choice have better consequences than others. That you would fundamentally misunderstand that, even with repeatedly clarification (while avoiding diseases entirely after stating you were misunderstood) is hardly helpful K.
Why should this life be free of suffering? Why should we NOT have free will? You tell me?
I will also state, which is exactly the reason for the veil, that we tend to behave quite a bit different when Dad is watching and ready to punish us and install immediately consequences in poor behavior. Its rather why most sane people don;t run up too and start ******* on cops ... or selling drugs right in front them.
True free will requires separation from God, so that you CAN choose the do wrong and face the consequences of YOUR actions as a result of the NATURAL reaction to the choice ... rather than God's wrath - which would arguable prevent you from making a choice and LEARNING THE CONSEQUENCE FROR YOURSELF.
You would lose the ability to really learn, "Gosh that was stupid," and choose not to do it again because YOU choose to, rather than because God forces you too.
That is kind of the point - its God's Plan of Salvation.
All this has been explained in the thousands of years and hundreds of thousands of rebuttals to the Problem of Evil. Neither these rebuttals nor our base doctrine are hidden. Atheists would do well to review some of this before assuming their millennia old trump card, which has yet to trump anything in thousands of years, will somehow trump God NOW ... and only NOW ... that atheists have happened upon this idea.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
But you are missing an important piece here.
Humans need to go through a certain mean, a certain process, to achieve an end. God does not.
So, for example, you don't need to be murdered so that god can accomplish something. Omnipotence is unlimited power. If God wants a particular state of affairs at this exact moment, he will have it. He doesn't have the same limitation that we do.
You can not excuse a murder due to the end it will achieve, since god could have achieved the same result without a murder.
Oh no, God has a Plan of Salvation ... its not a hidden or secret doctrine K.
And as has been repeatedly stated for you, Free will means God CANNOT do it for us or it undermines what he intends.
What you are really saying is that experience has NO VALUE. (Which of course, now that I spell it pout plainly, you will no doubt deny that this is what you are saying.) Yet there you are demanding God do it all for us ... pointedly undermining the ENTIRE REASON we are separated from him.
Do you understand the basic claims of Christian theology?
More importantly, what proof are you attempting to garner from something that immediately invalidates any conclusion you draw?
God cannot do that? Yes he can.
God cannot know that? Yes he can.
That cannot be good? Yes, it can.
If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolant ... there is nothing you can do with that as a basis to disprove God. Anything you find is automatically invalidated. Anything at all.
That is why this proof is such a waste of time for atheists who think it disproves God.
And as you see, the religious people on the thread are hardly impressed are they? Why would we be?
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Koldo
Outstanding Member
That's the very definition of omnibenevolence on the problem of evil.
Which is why 'free will' is often used as an argument to defend the omnimax god. Because if some evil is necessary to achieve the utmost well-being then god would be justified.
If you want to define omnibenevolence differently, such as 'extreme liking for apple pie', feel free to do so. But you are no longer talking about the problem of evil.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
We could still free will and not suffer.
But here is the interesting part: Even though you don't face the direct wrath of god, you still are being punished indirectly by god for your actions. Since it was him who set what would the consequences for our actions be in the first place.
Potato, patato.
And then, even worse, we still suffer because of other people's action, and not just ours.
The plan of salvation makes no sense at all.
Just forgive everyone who needs to be forgiven, and make everyone live on heavens forever and ever right away. It is simple as that.
Maybe you should review the question posed by the problem of evil.
"If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good, why does he let so many bad things happen?"
If being perfectly good requires some amount of evil to allow growth and goodness in a perfectly developing sense for his creation then ...
As I said, attempting to disprove God with this line of reasoning simple does not work.
Its a bunch of hypotheticals that require one to garner certainty from an entirely unevidenced or unproveable/unknowable certainty. You are asking us to deny faith based on faith, correct?
Koldo
Outstanding Member
You see, this very existence disproves an omnimax god.
I need to do nothing other than connect the dots to show it.
It is simple as that. It just requires some finess.
Given that you just asked God to come down and fix everything for us, I am pretty certain you have never read up on God's Plan of Salvation. Which directly provides a 'revealed' answer to your questions here and yet has never once been mentioned by you ...
And indeed, now it makes no sense ... because everyone should just be forgiven?
WTH do you think grace is? Provided by Jesus himself?
No sinful creature can dwell in the presence of God, and yet he caste us loose that we may sin and know, and provided a way back for ALL of use to rejoin him in perfection and free of sin.
Somehow, that is evil ... and clearly misunderstood by you.
You clearly do not understand even the most basic concepts of Christianity, even as you make statements that put into lock step agreement with Christianity. Odd.
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Well, something retained in your mind convinced no one but yourself. And if its as simple as you say? Why no just do it?
BY all means explain how you achieve certainty in a premise that can never give you any certainty? Love to se that.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
There is no need for development in the first place. God can simply create perfect individuals without the need for any further growth.
Evil is not required to achieve anything at all.
Why would he?
Again, omnipotent beings CAN do anything, the question, as I have long stated is why WOULD HE?
And if his desire, as he states, is create being like us that become MORE LIKE HIM, with his principles ingrained in US because they are our experiences, rather than just computer code, then that seems to be what he would do isn't it?
that there are alternatives to what is possible has no bearing on what is or why it is.
Again, you derive no proof from this at all.
The goal? Just be different from God.
Well the Plan of Salvation and free will give you the chance to do just that. Do whatever you want and explore it, in end, as we have known for thousands of years, you will come to see that God's wisdom is correct ... and when you return to him? That wisdom will now be YOUR wisdom.
By all means, explore the alternatives ALL you want. A Benevolent God has given that opportunity - use it.
Then lets see if it disproves God. Really. Try it.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Actually, no.
That's a simplification.
To put it into a better context, the fact that he let it get "broken" in the first place is proof that he doesn't exist.
So, I am not really asking for something that doesn't exist to fix stuff.
That's a completely flawed method.
Let's assume that God could have messed up and let things get broken ( this is not possible, but let's entertain this though so I can talk about this point ): Why couldn't God fix it up instantly? Why would he need to go through a particular lenghty process to fix things up? That shows either a lack of power or a lack of will to set things right.
Well, thank you for clearly indicating that you have no idea what the gist of God's Plan of Salvation is.
Seriously K, that statement rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the Plan - which, if you understood it, you would clearly see is not 'broken'.
It a method chosen by God.
Its only flawed because your religion tells you it must be so. You are not God.
Once again, you are assuming that experience has no value to either us or God. that is an assumption that is, in and of itself, flawed.