The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[robvalue]

I was under the impression that there's no such thing as good and evil.
No one in the animal kingdom sees it that way, do they?

When baby gazelle gets caught by the cheetah in the Savanna, the mother keeps running while the cheetah has a nice meal. That's nature 101.

We have developed social morals so we can live peacefully together.
We now define good and evil based on these current but ever changing artificial "laws".

Therefore good and evil are only relative terms based on when and where you are born.

I agree. Good and evil are not well defined, and so it requires some agreement between both sides of the debate.

I prefer to substitute suffering for evil, to make it more universal. God creates life forms with the capacity to feel suffering, then sets the rules so that suffering can occur to them. This would not be necessary for whatever "plan" God thinks he has, if he is all powerful; and it wouldn't reflect his character if he thought suffering was undesirable.

Of course, theists often say that people cannot "appreciate" happiness without the possibility/occurence of suffering. If that is the case, then this itself is a rule God created. It didn't need to, if it was all powerful. So it decided to make suffering necessary for happiness, so it could include it.