The Ultimate Why There Is Evil in the World Thread.

[AFTT47]

The theist needs to prove that creating a universe is better than not creating one.

I assume your life is not without its share of suffering. Does that mean that you would prefer never having been born? Or now that you do exist, in what you consider a crapsack world, will you accelerate your own demise? I doubt that very much.

I can't answer for Pyrrho but for myself, YES, I would have preferred not to have been born. It's not that I'm miserable but there is more strife than desirable things. And I have a death sentence. Life would be worth it if I had time to self-evolve into something greater but I don't have that option because of our pathetic lifespan. So why don't I just kill myself? Because I have a hard-wired fear of death.

I didn't ask to be born. I didn't hard-wire myself to fear death. I don't know about you but the world I find myself in sure as hell isn't optimal for me. It could be a lot better. I just make the best of what I have because what else can I do?

[robvalue]

I would prefer I had never been born.

The only reason I don't end myself is because of the effect it would have on those who love me.

I imagine a world infinitely better than this every time I close my eyes.

[Hatshepsut]

Replies to rexbeccarox #36 and Pyrrho #40 on new thread [link].

Demonstrating that the initial request was...set up to fail.

But which request? The OP itself is a response to a request from a different thread; apparently a larger discussion is migrating from thread to thread in the way I hope that antibiotic is migrating through my tissues. ChadWooter #23 about whether rating our world on a value scale relative to perfection is feasible? I agree with Chad that popping the question is honest; the matter is relevant to belief in a good god. Although I'm less confident the problem can be surmounted. It may be intractable.  

Many Christians when asked why there is evil in the world, respond that god allowed us free will in order  for us to freely decide to love him. Because humans have free will, evil things happen in the world as a result of human actions. God is not, according to them, responsible for human actions. This means that babies are raped because god wants love.

BTW, I don't know if Voldemort is real but Gandalf definitely is.  

As you can see, I'm one of those who maintain we can't pin it on God just because we believe God is good. I don't see how the desire of God to enjoy a love relationship with humans, which cannot be genuine without human choice (if not the free will that brings its own philosophical problems), has anything to do with rape against children. As other replies have noted, granting choice could not make rape necessary, it only made it possible.

In the other thread, I had suggested that someone read the Bible. Also, with this opening, and the title of the thread, you seem to be trying to shift the discussion from your first claim to a general discussion of the problem of evil...If you are a theist reading these verses do you believe in a fallen world? Why do you believe there is evil in the world?

When introducing myself, I explained I don't like organized religion very much anymore, including some of the Christian varieties. Religion has cluttered up exploration of the divine; the various camps won't admit or use the truths other religions offer and layers of doctrine slather on like peanut butter on an overloaded sandwich. While I don't think Christianity holds a monopoly on deity, or that the challenges of humanism and atheism should be ignored with snide dismissal, I haven't given up on believership yet. I still think Christ represents a major breakthrough in the understanding of god, especially in the severe society he ministered to.

The story of the fall reflects something real, although it's been subject to heavy interpretive overlays in the attempt to keep doctrine in conformity with both Old & New Testaments, such as Paul in Romans. I think potential to work evil is in our nature but doubt babies are "born in sin." That's rather extreme on genetic determinism, leaving out the influence of the environment. Sin, or evil if we prefer, is inevitable because our environment contains so much of it. Indeed, we can't tiptoe past evil very long once born, so we fall pretty fast. I don't think Paul claimed babies were born sinful at Romans 5:12 either, despite saying that "all have sinned." Instead, he said that the entry of sin into the world caused death to become universal.

I imagine a world infinitely better than this every time I close my eyes.

I certainly hope you do not end yourself. Used to be about 40 years was all we had coming if we survived infancy, but today odds have improved and there's lots to enjoy even in those tough later years. I too imagine better worlds, and hope to enter one when I die, although I don't know what really happens in death.

The Christianity I like best today is the one that emphasizes the social gospel. This includes liberation theology, as with Bishop Gerardi in Guatemala before he was murdered in 1998, and with the United Church and Presbyterian (USA), etc. The latter churches now ordain both women and openly gay people, a big positive recent step.

For non-believers, there are spiritual or humanistic secular efforts at helping the world. The world sucks, but it's not a hopeless place while we're here.

[Whateverist]

First: "the atheists" don't have to do anything.  Atheists need not demonstrate anything about a god...

You're right atheists don't have to prove anything until they do try to prove something like the notion that theodicy disproves God. In the context of this thread an intelligent reader would be able to recognize my use of the word atheist as a generality and not a universal.

Second: you have a real problem with this shit.  I'm really sick of you lumping atheists together the way you do.  

With all due respect..screw you. I'm not about to qualify every single use of the word 'atheist' with "those atheists who" or "only atheists that" just because you lack the wit to read things in context.

Excuse me, Chad, but why on earth do you think I was responding to you?  I quoted Hatshepust directly.

So, no.  Screw you.

Geez, get a room.  And take pictures.  We'll expect a tell all after.

---

I assume your life is not without its share of suffering. Does that mean that you would prefer never having been born? Or now that you do exist, in what you consider a crapsack world, will you accelerate your own demise? I doubt that very much.

I can't answer for Pyrrho but for myself, YES, I would have preferred not to have been born. It's not that I'm miserable but there is more strife than desirable things. And I have a death sentence. Life would be worth it if I had time to self-evolve into something greater but I don't have that option because of our pathetic lifespan. So why don't I just kill myself? Because I have a hard-wired fear of death.

I didn't ask to be born. I didn't hard-wire myself to fear death. I don't know about you but the world I find myself in sure as hell isn't optimal for me. It could be a lot better. I just make the best of what I have because what else can I do?

Whoa!  Half full!  The goddam glass is half full, as well as half empty.  Sometimes you get the half with the dregs, admittedly.  But if I knew it would be my last sip I'd certainly savor them all the same.

[Cyberman]

Demonstrating that the initial request was malformed, dishonest and set up to fail.

But which request?

Are you capable of reading comprehension, or are you deliberately trying to muddy the water? In the context of the exchange, a selected part you chose to quote, the phrase "initial request" refers to chad's "show that a better world is possible without resorting to speculation".

Incidentally, your breach of Rule 14 on my quote, reinstated above, has been reported.

[rexbeccarox]

I'm still waiting on an apology from Chad. Chad, are you going to be honest for once and admit you were wrong? Doubt it, but It would be nice.

Oh, and W'ist, that will be a cold day in hell.

[Pyrrho]

"show that a better world is possible without resorting to speculation"? The whole damn setup is an exercise in speculation! It's like saying "bake me a better cake without resorting to ingredients"!

Yes.  And that is exactly what I previously stated in post #40:

...

Now, I will go back to what I was mentioning at first in my post, about how this will go.  The religionist refuses to accept any evidence of anything on this issue.  It does not matter what proofs one puts forth; they are rejected out of hand, with some bullshit like, "God's ways show infinite foresight, " etc.  Basically, they take a position in which there is nothing that they would accept as evidence against their position.  So it is a pretense to reason, as the reality is that they reject all reason on the matter and simply dogmatically assert that this is somehow best, in some mysterious, inscrutable way.

...

What we have are Christians making ridiculous claims, for whom nothing could possibly count as counter-evidence.

In this case of the nonsensical claim that this is "the best of all possible worlds," as stated in that same post, even if that were true, it would still not be enough to show that this world is compatible with a perfectly good being:

...

There is another point, though, which you are wrong about.  Specifically, "...the atheists need demonstrate the stronger result that God has failed to create the "best of all possible worlds," not merely that he has failed to create a perfect one."  The theist needs to prove that creating a universe is better than not creating one.  Creating a bad universe is worse than nothing, and we have no reason to suppose that this universe is, overall, better than nothing.  Think of all of the suffering in the world, of children starving to death, children being raped and brutalized, children burning in fires, children dying of all manner of painful diseases, etc., etc., etc.  The idea that this world is better than nothing is ridiculous.

...

That God created this world means that if this world is not better than nothing, then God is not good.  So the Christian needs to not only prove that this is the best of all possible worlds (which they have obviously not done), they need to also prove that this world is better than nothing (which, of course, they also have obviously not done).  Until those things are done, there is zero reason to believe them.

But matters are even worse for these Christians than just all of that.  I will quote myself from another thread:

...

Additionally, even if we grant you the absurd claim that this is the best of all possible worlds, that gives rise to yet another problem for Christianity (other than the fact that, if I am a murderous rapist child molester, that MUST be part of the best possible world, so I OUGHT TO DO IT!), it makes total hash of the idea that there is another world called "heaven" that is better than this one.  If this is the best of all possible worlds, heaven is logically impossible.

If this were the best of all possible worlds, then Charles Manson must have been right to have his followers kill people, as, per hypothesis, the way things are in this world is all part of the best possible world.  You wouldn't want to live in some second-rate world without murder, would you?

Additionally, it means that heaven, which is supposed to be a world that is better than this one, cannot possibly exist, because no world can be better than the best possible world.  To be better than the best possible is self-contradictory, and thus logically impossible.  If this world is the best possible world, then heaven is not merely physically impossible, it is logically impossible.  Thus, if the Christian were to prove the absurd hypothesis that this really is the best of all possible worlds, in so doing the Christian would be proving that heaven does not exist!

[dyresand]

If we had to say what the true evil in this world is.

Religion

money isn't evil it's just the backer of evil. money isn't the root of all evil only a supporter.

Ignorance just like money.

power for good bad or neutral intentions religion depending on the area uses it power for corrupt purposes and bad intentions
that affect the third world and home country.

[robvalue]

Hatsh: Thank you. I have promised my wife I won't harm myself, so at least as long as she is still here, I shall be too.

Pyrrho: Nice catch! I forgot about heaven, silly me. Seems like some Christians did too It makes no sense to put us here and not just straight into heaven, if God wants us to be happy and to have a relationship with him. If he wants it to be a choice, just give us a door we can walk out of anytime into oblivion. Or.... stick us on this much worse place and see how many unsubstantiated claims we'll believe, and judge us accordingly. If you're a sick fuck of a god.

That idiot Gallups said we need this life to get ready for heaven. Well, just make us so we're ready for heaven you nob.

[Hatshepsut]

But which request?

Are you capable of reading comprehension, or are you deliberately trying to muddy the water? In the context of the exchange, a selected part you chose to quote, the phrase "initial request" refers to chad's "show that a better world is possible without resorting to speculation".

Incidentally, your breach of Rule 14 on my quote, reinstated above, has been reported.

The thing's getting so cluttered with posts quoting other posts that it's hard to follow. That was a real question. The answer's clear at this point.

Although I don't follow the numbered rule list, it is ordinarily permissible to use ellipses .... to indicate that part of a quoted source is left out. There's an arrow button to go back to the source. It looks neater that way. I don't think omitting the words "malformed" and "dishonest" and leaving "set up to fail" materially misrepresents what you said.

Before we were created, it was impossible to do anything for us, because there was no us to be benefited.  The act of creating in the first place can only be because God wants to do so, which means he lacks something that he desires.  This is proof that god is defective.

Which assumes that God had this desire to "do things for us" before he created the world. It's possible that he did not have that desire until after we were here, so that he wasn't lacking anything. Another premise used here is that lacking something is actually a defect, although it's common; St. Augustine & Thomas Aquinas both used it.

And the idea that creating the world as we have it is for our benefit is so fucking stupid...

Here, it looks like he didn't have that desire after all. We can't have it both ways.

Your other argument is much stronger I think. Indeed, why heaven? Why create a suffering universe with heaven later, instead of just having heaven in one step? I don't know what the answer to that one is for sure. But we should recall that heaven is a reward which is earned.