The Problem of Evil (PoE) points out that if an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god existed, there would be no evil...
I have always wondered about this PoE musing "argument", and the set-rules of logic, one defines. Indeed its "not unfathomable" to you (plural) here, you seem to know - I could easily add
to the end of your statement: "The problem of Evil points out..[....],
there would be no more evil, when Jesus returns", or something similar.
That would work for a god who will oppose evil
once Jesus returns.
It doesn't work for a god who always opposes evil.
Evil is not an entity, nor a dark cloud or force by itself!
Evil is anything--like Hellfire, for instance--that makes people unhappy.
Jesus who returns, opposes people who chose NOT to refrain from doing evil. This works for God who always opposes people who do NOT refrain from doing evil
I pointed out that a god who is smart enough and strong enough to prevent evil, and who totally wanted to prevent evil, would prevent all evil. If such a god existed, there would be no evil.
You reasoned about gods and concluded that if a god was smart enough and strong enough to prevent evil, and if he totally wanted to prevent evil, then he might prevent evil just sometimes, like on Wednesdays, or after Jesus returns.
So I pointed out that that doesn't work for gods who totally want to prevent evil, but only for gods who want to prevent evil
sometimes.
So you proposed a god who doesn't want to prevent evil itself, but only wants to prevent people from refraining to do evil.
First, that's not the Christian god. That god wouldn't care about earthquakes, diseases, and other natural evils.
Second, it doesn't help you with your problem. If people people do evil until Jesus returns, that means that--assuming your gods exist--they aren't
always strong enough and smart enough to keep people from doing evil, or they don't
always want people to refrain from doing evil.
Such a god wouldn't be omnibenevolent. It would be
somewhat benevolent.
The problem of evil doesn't purport to disprove gods who are only somewhat benevolent, somewhat strong, or somewhat smart.
That would work for a god who will be strong enough to prevent evil once Jesus returns.
It doesn't work for a god who is always strong enough to prevent evil.
That would work for a god who will be smart enough to prevent evil once Jesus returns.
It doesn't work for a god who is always smart enough to prevent evil.
To be preventing evil completely, at this moment, should mean according to the logic, no more existence for you or me - we, the free willed, emotional human with a system of senses, whereby data (if you will) is fed through the nerves, being a function mechanism to exist in environments on a
physical plane.
You cannot support that arbitrary claim.
And even if you could support it -- which you can't -- you don't actually believe in a Heaven without existence, free will, emotions, and senses. Do you?
Imho, perhaps the PoE is not as so-complex as one might think... thinking from a simpler angle, being ground level fathomable, rather than the usual,
philosophical-intellectual-sophisticating-overthink, and making up questions in that vein. [....].
Your response was to claim that (in my words, not yours) your gods are as far above my understanding as I am above an ant's understanding.
Your point -- if I understand you -- is that my argument (the PoE) is of no significance because I'm trying to reason about gods.
Again, I do
not say your arguments are insignificant.
You blew off my argument on the grounds that my reasoning about a god was like an ant's reasoning about a human.
I don't know whether you're backpedaling now, or complaining that I didn't phrase something just right.
But, but... I'm also including myself as being the ant too!
You go back and forth. Sometimes you make arbitrary claims about gods, as if you were a sentient reasoning being (however arbitrary). Other times, when you don't like where logic takes us, you reject logic as not applying to gods, or as not really within human capability when we're discussing gods, or something like that.
You go back and forth on whether you're an ant, as you find it convenient.
But, if we should dismiss my conclusion because it is based on reasoning about gods, then we should do the same with your conclusions.
As my daddy, a Christian, would say, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Come on Wiploc, what are you're saying?
The problem of evil is bulletproof. There is no possible rebuttal.
Evil exists, and evil could be a problem... that's bullet proof!
Stipulation: Evil exists.
Conclusion: Therefore, we know that tri-omni gods (omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent) do not exist.
Such gods cannot logically coexist with evil. Therefore, since evil exists tri-omni gods do not exist.
Instead of even trying to refute it, you dismissed it as reasoning about gods. Reasoning about gods isn't to be entertained when we do it, but it's fine when you do it.
That's special pleading, a logical fallacy.
Instead of trying to refute it?
I AM! By refuting this PoE concept which
imaginatively suggests there to be: "no
free-will, no
independent thinking, no
emotions or
feelings to act on the senses reacting to the surrounding physical environment, to which according to the PoE... would be the characteristics of a "perfect god". Evil is just one
of the synonymous (side) effects, in a physical touch sensitive universe of
emotional intelligent physical beings.
You're just making that up. You don't really believe Heaven is like that.
Why is it that when
I talk about preventing evil, you say that would make us mindless robots, but when
you talk about preventing evil, that's been gods' plan all along?
That's special pleading, a faulty form of reasoning.
As we have pointed out to you more than once, special pleading is cheating. It is flawed. It is bad.
You wouldn't like it if we did it, so you shouldn't do it yourself.
Are you saying "everyone one must agree with ALL the different conclusions there are, even when the conclusions are in opposition?
I'm saying you should pick a position and stick with it. If you get to reason about gods, so do I. If I don't get to reason about gods, then neither do you.
I'm saying we can use our reason about gods or God. I'm not dismissive of this.
You take that position intermittently, when you find it convenient.
You two-step back and forth between two incompatible positions.
You should pick one position and stick with it.
The claim that gods are beyond our logic is itself a claim purportedly based on logic.
The claim that gods are as far above us as we are above ants is itself a claim purportedly based on logic.
If you believed your own claim that our logic doesn't work on gods, you wouldn't make such claims.
If you want to be consistent, if you want to be logical, then you'll pick a position and stick with it:
Either we do get to reason about gods, in which case you don't get to dismiss my arguments as reasoning about gods,
or we don't get to reason about gods, in which case neither of us should be making any claims on the subject.
I believe I AM sticking to a position. I think you're seeing it wrong. You CAN reason about gods by logic; we don't pronounce or state this to be forbidden. I don't have to agree with your conclusion from what you read in the biblical text.
Then why do you invoke your ant/human/god analogy to dismiss my conclusion but not yours?
My analogy was merely highlighting the comparably large differences between two different entities.
You don't know that there is a large difference between us and gods. Maybe gods are as ants to us.
Or, if gods are unknowable to us, you should quit pretending to know about them.
Not sure what you're getting at here. To clarify the context you're debating here? IF gods are unknowable, does the
contrary mean to you, that I should know
absolutely everything about God?
If you get to make logic-based claims about gods, then so do I.
If I don't get to make such claims, then neither do you.
Pick a position and stick with it.
I'd say there's enough material to reasonably know God is the creator, simply because it says so, when we read the texts - which funny enough, is a commonly known Christian prerogative, to keep studying, and reading, getting to know God, within reasonable capacitance - 'which is not to mean'... you should know absolutely everything God is, or everything God knows.
You know that a tri-omni god exists because you read it in a book?
I know that no tri-omni gods exist because I read that in another book.
"Simply because
it says so."
If that's your whole argument, and that argument produces contradictory claims (gods both do and don't exist), then the argument is worth nothing. It weighs zero in the scales of persuasion.
Got anything stronger?