Problems with the Problem of Evil

[Lion IRC]

To be fair, you are claiming both a god (benevolent one) and evil (as a tangible thing) coexist....

I'm pushing back on the sort of cognitive dissonance which says we can blame God for lung cancer even if we know smoking causes lung cancer.

 

[ideologyhunter]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles. Hey, this could start a movement.
Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens? Could God create a world without carcinogens? Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes? My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

To be fair, you are claiming both a god (benevolent one) and evil (as a tangible thing) coexist....

I'm pushing back on the sort of cognitive dissonance which says we can blame God for lung cancer even if we know smoking causes lung cancer.

Smoking can cause cancer. But smoking didn't invent cancer. That'd fall under the intelligently designed human being and its inability of managing mutating cells (unlike whales). Plenty of cancers exist that don't need self-maltreatment to occur and kill.

And this is forgetting that other ailments (some even worse) are out there too. Unless you think an awful ailment such as schizophrenia is also cause by smoking or some level of debauchery.

 

[Lion IRC]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles.

I dont understand why we can't thank God for food and blame obesity on the person who eats too much.

Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens?

Why?
So that cigarette companies can avoid the blame?

Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes?

You mean like sanitation laws about bathing and clothes washing?.—Leviticus 15:4-27

You mean like how to dispose of human waste? Deuteronomy 23:12

Touching a dead body? —Leviticus 5:2

My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

My side has more scientists than yours.
...and always has.

 

[southernhybrid]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles. Hey, this could start a movement.
Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens? Could God create a world without carcinogens? Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes? My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

And please don't thank god for recovering from cancer. It was medical science that did that for you. I hate if when I hear Christians praising god because they or someone they know recovered from some potentially deadly disease, or a very difficult surgery. Yeah, it was god who was holding the scalpel and other tools that were used to do that heart surgery and it was god who developed that chemotherapy that cured or slowed down your cancer. I guess some people just gotta believe in some awesome higher power, pretending that all things good are from their god, while they disregard the rest.

But, back to the OP and the problem of evil. It was the problem of an evil god that drew me away from conservative Christianity. I used to ask my father when I was a little girl, how could an all loving god send people to hell for all eternity, simply for their lack of belief. He told me that god would explain it when we got to heaven. Obviously, my father wasn't much of a critical thinker. That's what I was taught as the child of evangelical Christian converts. Why was god sending my little Catholic friends to hell, if he was all loving? Why did god do all those awful things in the OT? Why was belief more important than character? I even chose to be Baptized at age 8, thinking maybe it would help me understand. It didn't but at least the church had a nice warm Baptismal pool. Why would you force such garbage on a child? I never told my son what to believe and he's a nice, happy atheist who calls religion "fairy tales" Maybe it was god's will that my son is an atheist. /s The conservative Christian mythological god is a narcissist with psychopathic tendencies, for sure.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes?

You mean like sanitation laws about bathing and clothes washing?.—Leviticus 15:4-27

You mean like how to dispose of human waste? Deuteronomy 23:12

Touching a dead body? —Leviticus 5:2

Pretty low bar there. Could have learned about pasteurization back then too. Or maybe "COOK THE PORK FULLY!"

My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

My side has more scientists than yours.

Sure do. None of them need god to prove our existence and the universe though.

 

[pood]

To be fair, you are claiming both a god (benevolent one) and evil (as a tangible thing) coexist....

I'm pushing back on the sort of cognitive dissonance which says we can blame God for lung cancer even if we know smoking causes lung cancer.

Oh, there you go again.

First, as was noted and you ignored, NOT ALL CANCER IS CAUSED BY SMOKING, and moreover, the cancer that IS caused by smoking is mainly lung cancer. Now, I live a few doors away from a live-in treatment facility for CHILDREN WITH FUCKING BRAIN CANCER — did they get THAT from smoking, hmm?

And, for those who got cancer from smoking, who is it, then, if God exists, who made tobacco both carcinogenic AND addictive? It sure wasn’t my Aunt Polly!

 

[Elixir]

And God doesn't cause smoking? WTF?
T'baccy the devil's weed now?

 

[ideologyhunter]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles.

I dont understand why we can't thank God for food and blame obesity on the person who eats too much.

Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens?

Why?
So that cigarette companies can avoid the blame?

Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes?

You mean like sanitation laws about bathing and clothes washing?.—Leviticus 15:4-27

You mean like how to dispose of human waste? Deuteronomy 23:12

Touching a dead body? —Leviticus 5:2

My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

My side has more scientists than yours.
...and always has.

1. You do realize that lung cancer can be idiopathic, right?
2. The Bible does not exceed or improve the medical, astronomical, biological, and especially the geological knowledge of the prescientific age in which it was written. Your answer didn't touch on cancer, germs, bacteria, or viruses. Couldn't God at least have told people to boil water before drinking it?
3. Scientists as a group poll less religious than the general population they are part of. It's hard to get a consistent % number, but that at least can be said. I don't think it's a very meaningful issue, though, as any literate, well-read person can compartmentalize and not do much reflection on theology, etc. I've known Christians who know a hell a lot more than I do on politics, for example, while giving a pass to the most ridiculous Bible stories.
4. Your first Leviticus quote comes from the same chapter that tells Mom she might as well sleep out in the back yard during her period -- anyone who touches her is unclean for the day and anything she sits or lies on is unclean. Jesus, can't make this up.

 

[Elixir]

My side has more scientists than yours.
...and always has.

BWAHAHAHA!

There are more scientists called Steve that accept evolution as the truth to existence, than all the creationist believing scientists put together.

 

[pood]

My side has more scientists than yours.
...and always has.

Nope. Wrong again. Most modern scientists are atheists.

 

[Elixir]

could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens?

Loan Sharks.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Or just plain sharks, which I've read do not get cancer.

 

[bilby]

To be fair, you are claiming both a god (benevolent one) and evil (as a tangible thing) coexist....

I'm pushing back on the sort of cognitive dissonance which says we can blame God for lung cancer even if we know smoking causes lung cancer.

Nah, you're just doubling down on your error caused by your abject failure to recognise obvious context.

You have failed to understand (or pretended to fail to understand, for rhetorical effect), but you are determined to impose your obviously erroneous understanding on the conversation, and appear oblivious to the fact that you are the only one here who accepts your alternate reality.

You are achieving nothing but to make yourself appear even more ridiculous, which while it is certainly an impressive feat, really isn't a laudable one.

 

[Jarhyn]

To be fair, you are claiming both a god (benevolent one) and evil (as a tangible thing) coexist....

I'm pushing back on the sort of cognitive dissonance which says we can blame God for lung cancer even if we know smoking causes lung cancer.

We can blame God, if it exists, "for cancer" even if we know "smoking causes cancer", because God is responsible for "smoking causes cancer", again assuming it exists at all.

The only thing that idemnifies god for "smoking causes cancer" is "god not foreseeing smoking, or cancer, or any such thing", in which case it is true that "God isn't worthy of worship as an infinitely wise and benevolent thing".

Atheists have no issue with "God isn't worthy of worship as an infinitely wise and benevolent thing".

It's not our problem, but yours, Lion. We are already on team "God isn't worthy of worship as an infinitely wise and benevolent thing".

Now, personally I find "god causing cancer to exist" as not necessarily a reason to invalidate significant benevolence, but I can only do that for reasons Christians object to. Namely, this includes acceptance that gods are not bound to perfection.

 

[bilby]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles. Hey, this could start a movement.
Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens? Could God create a world without carcinogens? Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes? My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

Yeah, the Bible didn't even bother, amongst the hundreds of rules it imposes, to include simple instructions on siting and depth of latrine pits, in order to prevent the spread of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Given that such instructions could have saved hundreds of millions of people from vile, agonising, and degrading deaths, it seems like an odd omission from a book that supposedly provides all the divine guidance necessary for humanity.

"Dig not your latrines less than six cubits in depth; Nor within an hundred of cubits of a well or stream from which men or their livestock may drink; Or thou shalt be cursed to shit thineself inside out for three days before thou dost perish. Thus sayeth the LORD." - Leviticus, the lost verses.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Yeah, the Bible didn't even bother, amongst the hundreds of rules it imposes, to include simple instructions on siting and depth of latrine pits, in order to prevent the spread of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

God must've had bad toilet training. In Ezekiel 4, to punish Israel through Ezekiel, he sentences Zeke to lie on his side for 430 days and to eat bread baked on a fire banked on turds. I'm not even sure that would work, short of a miracle, and then it would be history's first pu pu platter, a real Bible first. But scrappy ol' Ezekiel disputes with God, who gets into the discussion with divine discernment, and agrees that the fire can be fed with cow dung. (The American settlers on the Great Plains got this to work.) Tell me that the literalist Christians wouldn't be hooting about this story if it appeared in the Quran. And next time you're invited to a church potluck with heirloom foods, skip the bread course.

 

[Jarhyn]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles. Hey, this could start a movement.
Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens? Could God create a world without carcinogens? Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes? My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

Yeah, the Bible didn't even bother, amongst the hundreds of rules it imposes, to include simple instructions on siting and depth of latrine pits, in order to prevent the spread of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Given that such instructions could have saved hundreds of millions of people from vile, agonising, and degrading deaths, it seems like an odd omission from a book that supposedly provides all the divine guidance necessary for humanity.

"Dig not your latrines less than six cubits in depth; Nor within an hundred of cubits of a well or stream from which men or their livestock may drink; Or thou shalt be cursed to shit thineself inside out for three days before thou dost perish. Thus sayeth the LORD." - Leviticus, the lost verses.

Yeah, at least Islam improved things with "don't eat with the hand you wipe your ass with... And use water!"

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So...don't thank God for the rain, that's caused by the water cycle. Don't thank God for food, that comes from fertilization, seed formation, and synthesis. Don't thank God for the beautiful sunset, that's just light passing through skyborn particles. Hey, this could start a movement.
Sidebar: could God create human bodies that would not be susceptible to carcinogens? Could God create a world without carcinogens? Also, why is it that man had to discover the existence of cancer cells, germs, bacteria, and viruses and how to combat them over long centuries, when God could have imparted that knowledge to his Biblical scribes? My side has a better answer to that than the theist side.

Yeah, the Bible didn't even bother, amongst the hundreds of rules it imposes, to include simple instructions on siting and depth of latrine pits, in order to prevent the spread of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Given that such instructions could have saved hundreds of millions of people from vile, agonising, and degrading deaths, it seems like an odd omission from a book that supposedly provides all the divine guidance necessary for humanity.

Bible has probably 100 times more lines about begetting than health codes, yet, someone pulls out three things from a rather massive book, and all of a sudden it is bigger than Pasteur. Funny, how there were no improvements over the 600 year run up to the New Testament.

Look... loooooook... it says no shell fish. This was Yahweh protecting his people from looking like idiots at a Red Lobster, wearing a stupid plastic bib.

 

[ideologyhunter]

There's a cartoon somewhere where a Bible scribe is saying, "We got room for Eat No Shellfish or Free Your Slaves...goin' with the Shellfish!"