If Your God...

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this

excactly this

Actually the Problem of Evil has never been properly resolved. I have a resolution: God is NOT good. Problem solved. God may even hate us. That is possible.

ruveyn

We are bacteria to such a being. It views us in such a manner, if it were to exist

Despite the fact pretty much all religions promise heaven for those who do good in the eyes of god, and several religions claim god destroyed part of himself for us (Christ on the cross is the most common example)

What about "Art"? Then, there's the problems with all the laws of physics and laws of probability being violated with those "quantums" not behaving to any concept of law, besides all the patchworked law, with all the exceptions to be required to be ignored (quantums don't help the "God" argument either).

Tadzio

The logical problem of evil is considered resolved. Atheists tend to perfer the evidential formulation which works from the assumption that God is logically compatible with evil. As such, I see no good reason to embrace the position that you are putting forward here. The claim that God and evil cannot coexist, as put forward by Fnord in the OP (the questions he quotes from are some of the oldest formulations of the logical problem of evil).

The problem is, disproving the statement is actually really easy. One proposition, no matter how unlikely, that shows the two concepts working together is enough to show that the concepts are not logically incompatible. As such the argument in this thread has essentially been over since Visagrunt gave us some propositions.

My view is that the promises made by religions are completely false and generally of a manipulative nature. For instance, many people who have killed in cold blood or done other acts of "evil" accept Christ and believe they will be forgiven for their sins in the afterlife. Soldiers kill other soldiers in war; "Thou shalt not kill"... do all the soldiers go to hell to burn for eternity? I feel there are too many problems, logical and ethical, with religions for them to actually be related in any way to being/s of unimaginable power.

My god can not prevent evil.

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Q3: If your god is NOT ABLE to prevent evil, and WILLING to prevent evil, then does that mean that your god is not all-powerful?

My God is not all powerful it's just there.

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I don't worship my God.


Not all thiests belive in an all-powerful god. Thank You.

That's so boring though! If one is going to believe in something extraordinary that has to be taken on faith, why not just go all out?

I try to stay far away form the herd of sheep led by their shepherd Abraham.

Believers in Christ understand that humanity inherits sinful nature from Adam. All people are sinners destined for eternal separation from God. Whether someone accepts atonement for sin early in life or in the final hour makes no difference when it comes to God's grace.


Depends on whether the soldiers in question are forgiven. "Thou shalt not kill" refers to murder. Killing in response to acts of aggression is hardly murder.

Or... Maybe the universe doesn't work that way. Man created god in his own image, right?

First of all, the belief in an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent deity is not universal, and even within religious traditions that notionally hold to such a description, it is not understood on such a practical level. Consider the Roman Catholic Church. Canonisation requires proof of two miracles that can be attributed to the intercession of the individual in question (note, Roman Catholic Saints don't perform miracles themselves, they only put in a requisition for a miracle). Such miracles need not be supernatural, nor need they demonstrably violate scientific principles. All that is required is that the miracle be something which cannot be explained. That's a pretty low bar for a a faith that supposedly believes its deity is capable of omnipotence.

Now, for the sake of argument, let's take on board your supposition that the Almighty can eliminate evil.

Where, though, is the argument that the Almighty wants to remove evil personally? Your argument depends upon the notion not only that God hates evil (fair enough), but that God wants to do everything in his power to eliminate it. But what if a deity wants humanity to undertake that? What if the divine purpose behind tolerating (not accepting, merely tolerating) the presence of evil is the capacity is provides for humanity to make a choice, and hopefully choose good over evil?

Your alternative hypotheses are insufficient to encompass the possibilities that emerge from your premises. All you are doing is looking to confirm your own prejudices rather than make any honest inquiry into what a relationship between a deity, good, evil and humanity might look like.

Here's the religious argument against Epicurus:

What if me and another person both believed in our separate omni-god, except my understanding of the omni-whatever of my god was understood a step further than the other guy understood the omni-whatever of his god? Wouldn't that mean my god is more powerful than his? Because the omni-whatevers are mental constructs regarding infinity, no one's understanding of what anything all powerful is correct. Both our gods might not be omni at all, but are all powerful just a step beyond our comprehension. That's all it would take to be considered all powerful beyond our comprehension.

Klaatu barada nikto.

Take questions (1) through (3), replace "your god" with "humans", or "I". New semantic content!