These answers to the problem of evil are unsatisfactory to me

[Lisa Sims]

God has not left us without help. If we are suffering, we can pray to God for help. And if we are living in accordance with His Laws of right conduct, His ministering angels are permitted to help us.

“I want to clarify something for you. We Celestial spirits have left the earth-plane behind, including our Earth life. But we retain our Love for mortals, in hopes that they can see what we have seen – that we can achieve oneness with God through the Divine Love…And there are many mortals who attract us by their yearning for the higher truths. These mortals need assistance with material concerns, and we assist them accordingly." Thomas Jefferson, 10/8/2011

 

[ChieftheCef]

the ancient polytheists believed in limited, actual gods, not perfect forms, perfect forms were imaginary i or whatever.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

God does not have to tell good from bad because God is all knowing, so God already knows what is good and what is bad.

In other words, god is able to tell right from wrong.

There are attributes that God has that humans do not have. Only God is Sovereign, Eternal, Holy, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Wise, Infallible, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, Omnipresent, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, and Immaterial

Nice bunch of bare claims.

Some of God's other attributes are Good, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Righteous, Forgiving, Patient.

These are mutually exclusive.
You can't be "just, righteous" as well as forgiving. Forgiveness is the suspension of justice.
You also can't be good if you are not a moral agent.

I already made up my mind. I said that God is not a moral agent.

Meaning that he can't be good (or bad). Then he just is.
As I explained multiple times now, for an entity to be "good" or "bad" or "benevolent" or "malevolent", that entity needs to be a moral agent.

The reason God is not a moral agent is because God is not accountable to anyone to act in any certain way.

Then Kim Yung Un is not a moral agent.

Whether the North Koreans can hold him accountable or not, Kim Yung Un can discern right from wrong and he is a person, so he is accountable, and he a moral agent.

As per your first sentence in this post, God can also know right from wrong....
You don't need to be a "person" to be a moral agent. Instead, you need to be able to tell right from wrong.
So God is a moral agent.

You are trying to have your cake and eat it also.

You can evaluate and judge God all you want to, but what are you evaluating and judging?

The morality of actions and decisions.

How do you think you can know what God did or is doing at any time?

I go by the claims of religions.
I personally don't even believe there is a god to do anything at all.
I don't believe there is a Darth Vader either, but I can still read the Star Wars story and make a moral judgement about the characters therein based on their behavior within context of the story.

Moreover, judging God is illogical since you cannot know more than God regarding what is right and wrong since you are not all-knowing.
You'd have to be more than all-knowing to know more than God, which is logically impossible.

This would imply that we can't make moral judgement about entities with a higher IQ then ourselves. This is off course ridiculous.

But that does not mean that God is a moral agent. God is not a moral agent is because God is not accountable to anyone to act in any certain way.

Neither is Kim Yung Un. And when you responded to that one, the definition of what a moral agent is suddenly changed.

Yes, God can discern right and wrong human behavior. If not, how could God judge humans?

Then God is a moral agent.

 

[muhammad_isa]

These are mutually exclusive.
You can't be "just, righteous" as well as forgiving. Forgiveness is the suspension of justice.

No it isn't .. it is part of justice.
Without forgiveness, there would be nobody left on the planet.
No human is without sin.

 

[firedragon]

Scriptures were written by men who had the same problem, that is they couldn't really know if what they were writing was "conjecture".

I didn't claim it was God's word. So this is just a strawman.

I was making an internal critique. And showing the inconsistency of asking the question "why did God do that".

 

[Alien826]

I didn't claim it was God's word. So this is just a strawman.

I was making an internal critique. And showing the inconsistency of asking the question "why did God do that".

I'm lost.

What I essentially said was that neither believers nor unbelievers can claim to know the mind of God. You came back with the idea of some believer getting knowledge of god from scripture. I pointed out that the writers of scripture were no more capable of "knowing" God than the readers, which you then agreed with. You then restated the original idea, that is we can't claim to know the mind of God.

Which all seems to add up to our agreeing. I don't see where any strawman comes into it.

 

[firedragon]

I'm lost.

What I essentially said was that neither believers nor unbelievers can claim to know the mind of God. You came back with the idea of some believer getting knowledge of god from scripture. I pointed out that the writers of scripture were no more capable of "knowing" God than the readers, which you then agreed with. You then restated the original idea, that is we can't claim to know the mind of God.

Which all seems to add up to our agreeing. I don't see where any strawman comes into it.

The strawman is speaking about the writers of scripture and them knowing God etc etc. That's irrelevant, and I didn't make that point. It's inconsistent to make an external critique while defining God from within a belief. That's the whole point.

 

[Alien826]

The strawman is speaking about the writers of scripture and them knowing God etc etc. That's irrelevant, and I didn't make that point. It's inconsistent to make an external critique while defining God from within a belief. That's the whole point.

OK. Let's drop it.

 

[firedragon]

OK. Let's drop it.

Cheers.

 

[Trailblazer]

In other words, god is able to tell right from wrong.

Yes.

These are mutually exclusive.
You can't be "just, righteous" as well as forgiving. Forgiveness is the suspension of justice.

One can exhibit different qualities at different times.
For example, a human can be very kind but at other times be very angry.
Likewise, God can be just but suspend justice and forgive those He chooses to forgive.

You also can't be good if you are not a moral agent.

Who says? God is good but God cannot be held accountable. If you can't be held accountable you can't be a moral agent.

A moral agent is a person who has the ability to discern right from wrong and to be held accountable for his or her own actions. Moral agents have a moral responsibility not to cause unjustified harm.

Moral Agent - Ethics Unwrapped

A Moral Agent is a person who can be held accountable for his or her actions because he or she has the ability to tell right from wrong.

ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu

Meaning that he can't be good (or bad). Then he just is.
As I explained multiple times now, for an entity to be "good" or "bad" or "benevolent" or "malevolent", that entity needs to be a moral agent.

No, moral agents can be "good" or "bad" or "benevolent" or "malevolent" but they are also held accountable for what they do.
God cannot be held accountable so God is not a moral agent.

Then Kim Yung Un is not a moral agent.

The hundred-dollar difference between God and Kim Yung Un is that it would be possible to hold Kim Yung Un accountable but it is impossible to hold God accountable. All you can do is imagine that God is accountable but you cannot call God to account. By contrast, if people really wanted to they could call Kim Yung Un to account for his behaviors.

As per your first sentence in this post, God can also know right from wrong....
You don't need to be a "person" to be a moral agent. Instead, you need to be able to tell right from wrong.
So God is a moral agent.

No, to be a moral agent, you not only need to be able to tell right from wrong. You also need to be able to be held accountable by others.
God cannot be held accountable so God is not a moral agent.

The morality of actions and decisions.

What actions and decisions of God do you know about?

I go by the claims of religions.
I personally don't even believe there is a god to do anything at all.
I don't believe there is a Darth Vader either, but I can still read the Star Wars story and make a moral judgement about the characters therein based on their behavior within context of the story.

I'd be real careful when going by the claims of religions, especially the stories that were written about God in the Bible. These are stories written by men about what God allegedly did. The writers anthropomorphized God, and that is how we know that God did not do these things, since God is not a man.

This would imply that we can't make moral judgement about entities with a higher IQ then ourselves. This is off course ridiculous.

It does not imply that. Humans can make moral judgments about any other human, since morality is not related to intelligence, it is tied to behaviors.

But God is not a human. God can judge humans because God is all-knowing, so God knows more than any human, but humans cannot judge God since they can never know as much or more than God.

In order to judge God, you'd have to know as much or more than God, which is logically impossible.
The upshot is that judging God is illogical since you cannot know as much or more than God regarding what is right and wrong since you are not all-knowing.

Neither is Kim Yung Un. And when you responded to that one, the definition of what a moral agent is suddenly changed.

Kim Yung Un has thus far not been held accountable but it would be possible to hold Kim Yung Un accountable.
However, it is impossible to hold God accountable. All you can do is 'believe' that God is accountable. You cannot locate God with a GPS and hold Him accountable. Now do you understand the difference?

Then God is a moral agent.

No, God is not a moral agent because God cannot be held accountable for His actions or inaction, even if we could know what they are..

 

[ChieftheCef]

the ancient polytheists believed in limited, actual gods, not perfect forms, perfect forms were imaginary i or whatever, because they were not bat**** insane. everything has limits, it is, and this IS at least, limited to the self. the idea that god is limitless is a misunderstanding when translating absence as god

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No it isn't .. it is part of justice.

Disagree.

Without forgiveness, there would be nobody left on the planet.

Because every wrongdoing is punished by death?

No human is without sin.

I don't buy into the religious concept of "sin".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, God is not a moral agent because God cannot be held accountable for His actions or inaction, even if we could know what they are..

IOW, might makes right.

 

[Trailblazer]

IOW, might makes right.

No, it has nothing to do with might. It is about being all-knowing.

 

[PearlSeeker]

the ancient polytheists believed in limited, actual gods, not perfect forms, perfect forms were imaginary i or whatever, because they were not bat**** insane. everything has limits, it is, and this IS at least, limited to the self. the idea that god is limitless is a misunderstanding when translating absence as god

When you say something is limited/imperfect you must have some idea of limitless/perfect. Where is this idea from?

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning." (C. S. Lewis)

 

[blü 2]

How do you explain the existence of evil, despite God being almighty, and all knowing, and perfect love?

How do you forum posters explain that evil exists despite God being, all powerful, all knowing and all love? Why does God permit or create evil? Or did God not want it for anything? Is evil and illusion? Why did Jesus create the situation of the crucifixion and go through that? Why does the...

www.christianforums.com

Since I think God only exists as a concept or thing imagined, and that [his] powers exist only as concepts or things imagined, the question seems to me to be equivalent to asking, How do you explain the existence of evil despite Superman possessing genuinely extraordinary powers and being extremely perceptive and well-intentioned?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, it has nothing to do with might. It is about being all-knowing.

False. You explicitly stated it is about not being able to be held accountable.
That is about might, not about knowledge.

 

[Massimo2002]

Since I think God only exists as a concept or thing imagined, and that [his] powers exist only as concepts or things imagined, the question seems to me to be equivalent to asking, How do you explain the existence of evil despite Superman possessing genuinely extraordinary powers and being extremely perceptive and well-intentioned?

Evil still is a problem weather or not God Is real.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I don't buy into the religious concept of "sin".

Right .. you have your own moral code.
..but that is a non-sequitur, in any case.

We were discussing the concept of forgiveness not being compatible with justice.
Justice is not just about punishment in the court of mankind .. why should it be in G-d's eyes?

 

[McBell]

Evil still is a problem weather or not God Is real.

Something I notice that theists and atheists tend to agree on is that God is not a source of evil....