The Problem of Evil (split from is atheism unappealing)

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think of the convocation before the Indy 500, a light religious prayer asking for god to protect the drivers. When in fact, God has been hit or miss over the years. That in fact, it was science and engineering that saved the lives of Tom Sneva and Kevin Cogan (specifically at Indy), and prevented greater injury to so many other drivers. Eddie Sachs, Gordon Smiley, Scott Brayton weren't as lucky though.

But every year, they keep asking for God's protection. No thought or thanks to those who put in the Safer Barrier, designed the cockpit (Grosjean's life was saved because of all sorts of tech in his F1 crash), fire suits, etc...

What's the takeaway lesson? For me it's that people are superstitious and still like to believe in magic. Asking a magic creature to protect me from danger is evidence enough. It just feels good I suppose, like when I feel good watching a movie or reading a book. But I can feel good without living my life as if the magic is real. I can switch modes. Some people cannot.

There is an inherent need to feel that we have some level of control over the future. We fear (or are anxious regarding) the unknown and demand that we know it or can control it.

 

[Rhea]

Please explain how you reconcile a tsunami that kills more than a quarter million people in under six hours with your assertion, "God loves us".

He won't answer the question. His brain can't parse the idea […] he will play a form of passive-aggressive dodge with you pretending that he doesn't understand what you are asking him until you give up, or he stops responding.

I think you’re discovering that this IS his answer. He does not reconcile it.

He dismisses the painful information from his universe. Reality has no object permanence, and he utterly erases misdeeds and plot holes from his cognition.

 

[atrib]

The Bible has an explanation as to why evil came into the world. As believers (who agree) we accept the harsh world and we understand it won't last, it's a step to the next phase. The concept of the Biblical God being so simple to understand - Basically it says of YOUR own choosing and accord: Dont take part, or be part of the PoE!!!

The Bible says we were born with a sinful nature, does it not?

Born with a sinful nature? Yes of course!

So we were created by God to have a sinful nature. You or I did not choose to be born that way; we were created that way. Please remember this, since it will come up later.

Not ALL sins are equal!! Each sin has it's consequences, meted out accordingly. Certain sins may not be forgivable at all, according to the bible.

let's get our contexts in sync:

Now the 'problem with evil' and not taking part, as I previously mentioned... , is the type of evil that causes needless harm, suffering or death to others, and so to illustrate my example....

How is this relevant to the discussion? We are not talking about the relative gravity of individual sins, but that we were all created by God to be sinful. Please keep your eyes on the ball and not try to divert the discussion into irrelevant details.

... HOW did YOU refrain from having any dark morbid thoughts and acting on those desires of say: raping vunerable innocent victims, or, what stopped YOU from killing people that really got on your nerves, when they got you so riled up? Do you refrain from any atrocious acts because you fear going to Jail or the consequence of some violent retaliation, OR, you turned away from going there, because your conscience (of compassion) got the better of you?

Are you telling us that you would be raping and killing innocent people if you didn't believe in God? Do you frequently get thoughts like this?

I have never once thought about killing anybody, or raping anybody. Not fucking once! I do get upset with people once in a while, especially people who lie to my face and try to deceive me, but I never think about killing them. Not even the brainwashed Christians who have sacrificed their intellectual integrity on the altar of their faith.

Who created us this way? God did.
Did any of us have any say in the matter? Fuck NO!

Understandable; you see its God's fault for sin to exist because 'technically' God caused ALL living creatures to exist.

How can it not be God's fault?
God created us all. Yes or no?
God created us all with our sinful natures. Yes or no?
You or I had no say in the matter. Yes or no?
Whose fault is it if not God's?

First part, lying for God, defeats the whole purpose (and logic), and still being a believer. Perhaps if I didn't really believe in God, then in this case you could say "I would be lying for the establishment or church" instead.

No, you are lying to cover up your God's bad behavior. Because your religious programming will not allow you to think rationally or assign any blame to your God. You are just like the people in North Korea who have been taught that Kim Jong-un is a god, that he can do no wrong, and their programmed minds will not allow them to even consider the possibility that they are wrong.

Your God created us with our sinful nature. How can it be our fault that we sin when we were created by God to sin?
But then God will punish us for acting sinful. How does this make sense? Why should we be punished for doing something that God designed us to do?

I know you won't answer these questions. But I am hoping that one of these days you might actually stop and think about what others are telling you. That one day you will be able to free your mind from the cage you have locked it up in.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You are just like the people in North Korea who have been taught that Kim Jong-un is a god, that he can do no wrong, and their programmed minds will not allow them to even consider the possibility that they are wrong.

Selection pressure. Dare to question or oppose and the god becomes violent.

 

[skepticalbip]

You are just like the people in North Korea who have been taught that Kim Jong-un is a god, that he can do no wrong, and their programmed minds will not allow them to even consider the possibility that they are wrong.

Selection pressure. Dare to question or oppose and the god becomes violent.

But only because he loves you...

 

[Learner]

Your post mentioning the bigger picture does not explain my original query. One more time, from the beginning: I quoted you as asserting "God loves us", and you wrote you had no doubt about it. I replied with a picture showing a few of the more than a quarter million people that were killed by a tsunami in 2005 and asked how you reconcile such massive cruelty with your assertion.

As I have already answered, although not to your liking, or our forum friends who are giving you their little support, maintaining the delusion thats seems to be merely hanging on a wee tiny thread i.e." I won't answer, I can't answer etc.".

I can tell you,even as a theist, and you may agree... nature killed those unfornates not God nor the devil.

The way I see it is that if there is a God, this event is evidence of him not loving us. His alleged absence is no excuse.

Yes I see the your logic..similar to Atrib's. Gods absence implies God kills indescriminately...

( I'm watching a video, forgot I was logged in,, will respond to everyone in a bit)

 

[bilby]

nature killed those unfornates not God

To suggest that nature can override the wishes of God is to admit that God is powerless, or more likely, non-existent.

Did God not have the ability to prevent nature from doing this? Or did God not know about it? Or did God not care?

 

[Hermit]

Your post mentioning the bigger picture does not explain my original query. One more time, from the beginning: I quoted you as asserting "God loves us", and you wrote you had no doubt about it. I replied with a picture showing a few of the more than a quarter million people that were killed by a tsunami in 2005 and asked how you reconcile such massive cruelty with your assertion.

As I have already answered, although not to your liking, or our forum friends who are giving you their little support, maintaining the delusion thats seems to be merely hanging on a wee tiny thread i.e." I won't answer, I can't answer etc.".

I can tell you,even as a theist, and you may agree... nature killed those unfornates not God nor the devil.

Your putative god made everything, including a planet with tectonic plates the movements of which cause earthquakes and tsunamis. If he exists, he is the responsible for the deaths they cause.

The way I see it is that if there is a God, this event is evidence of him not loving us. His alleged absence is no excuse.

Yes I see the your logic..similar to Atrib's. Gods absence implies God kills indescriminately...

The alleged absence of your alleged god does not relieve him from responsibility for the deaths for the same reason the Ford car company was held responsible for the fiery deaths of people driving the Ford Pinto. The placement of the car's petrol tank turned out to be a serious design fault. Ford could not argue that the company was not responsible for the deaths because it was not at the scene of the accidents when they happened. The court found it guilty of the deaths, and rightly so.

Your god, if he exists, does not love us. Disasters like the 2005 tsunami are proof of that.

 

[Learner]

nature killed those unfornates not God

To suggest that nature can override the wishes of God is to admit that God is powerless, or more likely, non-existent.

Did God not have the ability to prevent nature from doing this? Or did God not know about it? Or did God not care?

(Responding in no particular order)

Good questions. For the sake of decent discussion, heres my view from a theistic perspective. God created systems i.e. the universe is automatic. or automated, hence obviously, we have cycles and seasons, where we, with a bit of summing up from observation, get a good fair amount of predictability from repeatable natural processes observed; setting our charts and tables by. "He made the moon to mark the seasons...( btw also tells us, the moon is not a god. )

God is not at the helm to prevent these things anymore, in a manner of speaking,e.g., 'No God' is what people wished for, That's not until that is... the return of Christ. Death is harsh, yes, and death is inevitable as the bible is written : 'it is appointed for man to die once...Heb 2:7" (some aspects to this, as to why the flesh has to die; it maybe tainted (genetically) ) we will see and experience tribulation as Jesus says. It's not comforting I know, during those periods. The anwsers is tough one, yes of course. I say simply (the pay-grade I'm limited to), He loves us because we still exist, even when we turn our backs on Him. He gives life and He ressurects the dead.

 

[bilby]

nature killed those unfornates not God

To suggest that nature can override the wishes of God is to admit that God is powerless, or more likely, non-existent.

Did God not have the ability to prevent nature from doing this? Or did God not know about it? Or did God not care?

(Responding in no particular order)

Good questions. For the sake of decent discussion, heres my view from a theistic perspective. God created systems i.e. the universe is automatic. or automated, hence obviously, we have cycles and seasons, where we, with a bit of summing up from observation, get a good fair amount of predictability from repeatable natural processes observed; setting our charts and tables by. "He made the moon to mark the seasons...( btw also tells us, the moon is not a god. )

God is not at the helm to prevent these things anymore, in a manner of speaking,e.g., 'No God' is what people wished for, That's not until that is... the return of Christ. Death is harsh, yes, and death is inevitable as the bible is written : 'it is appointed for man to die once...Heb 2:7" (some aspects to this, as to why the flesh has to die, it maybe tainted, genetically) we will see and experience tribulation as Jesus says. It's not comforting I know, during those periods. The anwsers is tough one, yes of course. I say simply (the pay-grade I'm limited to), He loves us because we still exist, even when we turn our backs on Him. He gives life and He ressurects the dead.

Ah, OK. So God created an utterly shit, unsafe design, set it going in full knowledge that it was totally shit and massively unsafe, and now you want to say that he is blameless when his unsafe shit design killed a bunch of people, because he didn’t know that would happen, or was powerless to stop it, or didn’t care.

Sounds to me like your ‘explanation’ leaves you exactly where you started - with a God who is either powerless, ignorant, or uncaring. You just think that it’s OK, because he only set things in motion.

A bit like it’s not OK to burn someone’s house down and kill them and their family, but it’s perfectly OK to design an incendiary bomb with a timer, because then it’s the timer that killed them, not the designer of the bomb.

 

[Learner]

nature killed those unfornates not God

To suggest that nature can override the wishes of God is to admit that God is powerless, or more likely, non-existent.

Did God not have the ability to prevent nature from doing this? Or did God not know about it? Or did God not care?

(Responding in no particular order)

Good questions. For the sake of decent discussion, heres my view from a theistic perspective. God created systems i.e. the universe is automatic. or automated, hence obviously, we have cycles and seasons, where we, with a bit of summing up from observation, get a good fair amount of predictability from repeatable natural processes observed; setting our charts and tables by. "He made the moon to mark the seasons...( btw also tells us, the moon is not a god. )

God is not at the helm to prevent these things anymore, in a manner of speaking,e.g., 'No God' is what people wished for, That's not until that is... the return of Christ. Death is harsh, yes, and death is inevitable as the bible is written : 'it is appointed for man to die once...Heb 2:7" (some aspects to this, as to why the flesh has to die, it maybe tainted, genetically) we will see and experience tribulation as Jesus says. It's not comforting I know, during those periods. The anwsers is tough one, yes of course. I say simply (the pay-grade I'm limited to), He loves us because we still exist, even when we turn our backs on Him. He gives life and He ressurects the dead.

Ah, OK. So God created an utterly shit, unsafe design, set it going in full knowledge that it was totally shit and massively unsafe, and now you want to say that he is blameless when his unsafe shit design killed a bunch of people, because he didn’t know that would happen, or was powerless to stop it, or didn’t care.

The design was perfect. It was simply organic. I mean... you were given the gift design of 'nerve endings' to feel and experience the physicalness of the sun, the wind, touch, taste and smell of all the pleasant things organic and green etc.. Unfortunately the knowledge of how to over indulge, satisfying certain feelings, developing in to cravings, especially at an early stage of their development, as its written, naively infuenced by the serpent, and so on.

Now here's the thing! God has already the answer to al of this,death and suffering... as we know from the concept of the theism, heaven and new earth.

Why didn't God make satan a good guy? These acts against God highlights and exposes satan and the fallen. They must happen, it seems to me, even if God knows about them, because.... satan and co-fallen-angels have revealed themselves, by their own wills, a necessary proclamation as signing and declaring before God and all who witness, hear and see from the heavenly realm... that they by their own mouths will NOT be part of the paradise sharing with humans, who would be just as important (if not more than) the angels to God. The living entities, the angels and humans who will be there, are the ones who WANT to be there!

Sounds to me like your ‘explanation’ leaves you exactly where you started - with a God who is either powerless, ignorant, or uncaring. You just think that it’s OK, because he only set things in motion.

A bit like it’s not OK to burn someone’s house down and kill them and their family, but it’s perfectly OK to design an incendiary bomb with a timer, because then it’s the timer that killed them, not the designer of the bomb.

I will of course disagree. Death is overcome, the memory of it, a mere flash or flicker in the realm of endless time. It will be forgotten, and as written, God will wipe it all away. The bigger picture!

 

[Learner]

It's a right shame in your universe creation there's no hope for a happy ending. Oh well, I wouldn't mind seeing this as a movie.

 

[Jarhyn]

It's a right shame in your universe creation there's no hope for a happy ending. Oh well, I wouldn't mind seeing this as a movie.

Learner, use your two brain cells to consider what that means for this universe. Also, it's not that there is no hope of such. I was just thinking that it would be entirely possible to start a second fortress in a second world with none of that awful shit in it, every time someone dies because of something I actually did (such as to smash them under a drawbridge when nobody else was looking), I could re-implement all their "personal numbers" and "history" into a "new", "blank" dwarf spawned in that other world.

I could do that.

But I don't.

Also, the denizens of that world believe in a completely different quasi-false pantheon.

The fact is, they all believe in an afterlife. They even pray, although those prayers are offered up to nothing that can actually hear them or care. I don't even hear them, and tooling up the means to do so would be onerously difficult seeing as how I lack source code.

To Wit: this all means that any hope Learner has in an afterlife is equally dubious as the hopes the Dwarves have of such.

 

[atrib]

Sounds to me like your ‘explanation’ leaves you exactly where you started - with a God who is either powerless, ignorant, or uncaring.

I think he understand this, even though he cannot bring himself to acknowledge it publicly. He is probably unwilling to acknowledge this publicly, or even consciously in his own mind because:

(a) He is terrified that his God will punish him or,
(b) It might lead him to believe that God doesn't exist, which would mean all the time and effort he has put in searching for this god was a waste, and his whole world gets turned upside down.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

nature killed those unfornates not God

To suggest that nature can override the wishes of God is to admit that God is powerless, or more likely, non-existent.

Did God not have the ability to prevent nature from doing this? Or did God not know about it? Or did God not care?

(Responding in no particular order)

Good questions. For the sake of decent discussion, heres my view from a theistic perspective. God created systems i.e. the universe is automatic. or automated, hence obviously, we have cycles and seasons, where we, with a bit of summing up from observation, get a good fair amount of predictability from repeatable natural processes observed; setting our charts and tables by. "He made the moon to mark the seasons...( btw also tells us, the moon is not a god. )

I'm curious... Genesis 50 addresses this, yet you decided to invent something else out of thin air. You do this while noting your paygrade on the subject is inferior. It is odd, that someone of faith would ignore the Bible, and try to invent an answer to a question, that was already answered.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sounds to me like your ‘explanation’ leaves you exactly where you started - with a God who is either powerless, ignorant, or uncaring.

I think he understand this, even though he cannot bring himself to acknowledge it publicly. He is probably unwilling to acknowledge this publicly, or even consciously in his own mind because:

I'm still not all too convinced he actually is a theist. His persona shifts too much from theist babe in the woods to snooty theist know-it-all.

 

[skepticalbip]

Sounds to me like your ‘explanation’ leaves you exactly where you started - with a God who is either powerless, ignorant, or uncaring.

I think he understand this, even though he cannot bring himself to acknowledge it publicly. He is probably unwilling to acknowledge this publicly, or even consciously in his own mind because:

(a) He is terrified that his God will punish him or,
(b) It might lead him to believe that God doesn't exist, which would mean all the time and effort he has put in searching for this god was a waste, and his whole world gets turned upside down.

I don't know Lerner's motivation and reasoning but it sounds very much like the battered wife syndrome, "I can't leave him because he loves me. It's my fault that I keep doing things that make him mad enough to beat me."

 

[atrib]

Thanks for bringing this back to my attention, much has happened. Unfortunately through such disasters; these were forewarned and to be expected, since death came into the world, as it read in Genesis.

What do you mean, "came into this world"? God cursed Adam and Eve and all their descendants to death, it didn't just come into this world while nobody was looking. Lets see what Genesis 3 has to say:

Here God curses Eve to painful labor and makes Adam her master.

16 To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

Here he punishes Adam to painful toil, and curses him to death.

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

He God banishes them both from the Garden of Eden.

20 Adam[c] named his wife Eve,[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.


21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

So why are you making shit up? God is responsible for death "coming into this world". The Bible clearly says so.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Thanks for bringing this back to my attention, much has happened. Unfortunately through such disasters; these were forewarned and to be expected, since death came into the world, as it read in Genesis.

What do you mean, "came into this world"? God cursed Adam and Eve and all their descendants to death, it didn't just come into this world while nobody was looking. Lets see what Genesis 3 has to say:

Here God curses Eve to painful labor and makes Adam her master.

16 To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

Here he punishes Adam to painful toil, and curses him to death.

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

I've never read that as a curse of death. I've always read it as an aside, the curses are called out specifically. The death remark doesn't appear to be implied as a curse. Death exists, because the reason why Adam is tossed from the garden is because if he eats (continues to eat?) from the tree of life, he'd be like a god. Of course, The Tree of Life (patent pending) is kind of just tossed in there last second.

He God banishes them both from the Garden of Eden.

20 Adam[c] named his wife Eve,[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

So why are you making shit up? God is responsible for death "coming into this world". The Bible clearly says so.

Learner will say it was man and woman's fault. They disobeyed god!

Of course, they didn't actually disobey anything. God didn't forbid eating the fruit, he told them the fruit would kill them, 'that stuff there... deadly fruit, so deadly, people have been saying how deadly that fruit is.' God was being a dick... this as much comes out in 3:22 as you quoted. Serpent was like, "Dude, that won't kill you." Then man and woman become closer to equals with god. God hates this, and then scuttles the whole thing. This is a theme we'll see Yahweh repeat over and over with Man, Man again, Noah, Abram, Moses, Jesus.

 

[Learner]

I would still like to explain why I think the forbidden fruit may not be anything like the apple. One would like to think at least, to allow even the theist on the forum, as a member to explain his or her point of view, give their tuppance worth, responding to one who would ask in a courteous manner and curiosity, just for discussion, even if he may be wrong ... rather than ranting on as if one has a grudge, and best you can do is come with "making things up". My word... how people are so sensitive. No one likes particular answers I get it.

Patience please...