Everyone has wondered about this: why is there so much evil and suffering in the world if God is supposedly loving and able to stop it?

The Bible says that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Doesn't he know about every act of evil that ever was and ever will be? Why does he allow this suffering to happen? Doesn't he care?

No, he doesn't. Please let me explain.

Some Christians say that God allows evil into the world because he has a master plan. So, basically, every murder, rape and abortion that has happened and ever will happen was by His design. He allows us to do these horrible things, so basically we are doing his will, and have not sinned in any way, or ever can.

Another defense is that God is God, and he is allowed to do anything he wants and so whatever we want is irrelevant. That again falls back onto the murder, rape and abortion atrocities. Does a god that does these things because he wants to sound like a good one?

What about free will? Doesn't God give us that? Of course not. He knows everything, and is planning every second of our existence. We are all merely pieces of his puzzle. Satan was his design. So was the Holocaust. What about the 2.4 million deaths in the Bible? God did all those, and quite often, if you research the OT, you'll see that he is quite pleased with himself.

But, as many of you are already thinking, the real answer is that there is no God. If there truly was a God that "loves love and hates hate" then existence would be a lot more pleasurable than it is. Following reasoning and study, we can obviously see that existence has no guiding force. Our fates are not decided. If they were, I would want nothing to do with so evil of a God as the one in the Bible.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/...illed.html
http://godisimaginary.com/i6.htm

No god equals no evil, to be sure...for what qualities can a non entity have? But, if it's just a 'what/if' scenario, I'd prefer to think of the Judeo-Christian god as grossly incompetent. Not good nor evil.

To illustrate the incompetence...why would he design me so that my testicles are at perfect knee striking height for my wife? It's criminally stupid. :p

Skip the damned labels, this is the problem with all claims of all god/s in human history.

I used to be a huge fan of Plato until I read Dawkins's criticism of Platonic idealism. Plato stupidly postulated that if you simply "thought" about something you could find it's "essence" which lead to the popular idea of perfection. Dawkins blames much of modern religion on this stupid chase of utopias because of Plato's ideas.

But even as far back as Epicurus the problem with evil is a very valid argument against the concept of "all powerful" and "all loving". I have yet to this day ever heard one valid argument for any god concept that would justify all the fucking crap that happens in reality.

People don't want to accept the messiness of reality. They don't want to accept that reality is both good and bad and does not need a comic book explanation or a super hero vs super villain to explain. God concepts are our species childish imagination in avoiding their finite existence.

(August 31, 2013 at 7:21 am)Brian37 Wrote: Skip the damned labels, this is the problem with all claims of all god/s in human history.

I used to be a huge fan of Plato until I read Dawkins's criticism of Platonic idealism. Plato stupidly postulated that if you simply "thought" about something you could find it's "essence" which lead to the popular idea of perfection. Dawkins blames much of modern religion on this stupid chase of utopias because of Plato's ideas.

To be fair, modern religion's theology is a childish version of Plato's philosophy.

I think this topic had kind of been beat to death however it does remind me of a pet peeve of mine. I hate it when Atheists refer to God and automatically mean the Christian version of God. There are so many other concepts of God out there, most of whom aren't considered to be omni-benevolent. I actually doubt that early Christians an seriously doubt that early Jews considered their God to be all good so the argument only really applies to the modern era as well. The problem of evil actually doesn't do anything to counter the existence of God, just one very specific deity that not even all Christians accept. I think it's an overused argument that isn't really that thought out by most people.

God is only evil because man is evil. When man evolves, so will god.

You cannot call something evil you don't think exists. However, the character of God in the Bible, reading it as if it were a fiction novel, I would say is most certainly evil.

(August 31, 2013 at 12:06 pm)CleanShavenJesus Wrote: You cannot call something evil you don't think exists. However, the character of God in the Bible, reading it as if it were a fiction novel, I would say is most certainly evil.

It is a wonder that theists cannot discern the difference between one fictional character and another. By their logic of god being good, they should also view every fictional villain as good.

(August 31, 2013 at 11:08 am)CapnAwesome Wrote: I think this topic had kind of been beat to death...

Yeah, I kind of figured that this stuff has been stated before. But without sounding rude, no way am I going to dig through this entire forum to find this subject on years-old threads. I figure that if it isn't in recent discussion, why not start a new one? I certainly want to talk about it!

Now to wait and have someone show me that it was discussed just a few weeks ago. *sigh*

(August 31, 2013 at 12:15 pm)Beta Ray Bill Wrote:

(August 31, 2013 at 11:08 am)CapnAwesome Wrote: I think this topic had kind of been beat to death...

Yeah, I kind of figured that this stuff has been stated before. But without sounding rude, no way am I going to dig through this entire forum to find this subject on years-old threads. I figure that if it isn't in recent discussion, why not start a new one? I certainly want to talk about it!

Now to wait and have someone show me that it was discussed just a few weeks ago. *sigh*

Well it's not just on here (where it gets thoroughly beaten to death at least once a month.) It's just an old argument and I haven't heard an original idea from either side since I first heard it discussed. Like I said it's also a poor argument for Atheism since it really only covers one specific concept of God. Do you think you have something original to say on the topic? Yes the God of the bible is clearly not omnibenevolent. Yes it contradicts with Christian claims. I'm not quite sure what else can be said on the subject.