Epicurean Paradox

[Perhaps]

Certain key factors that are overlooked in your argument.

1. We don't attribute our own meaning to the words - the words represent specific concepts. The meaning is as deep as the word assigned to it. The concept of evil is simple - it is something that is considered undesirable.

Words are ascribed to abstractions of the mind to help us communicate. If I asked you what is infinity, you could spit me off a definition, but that definition doesn't capture the full abstraction of the concept. The same is true for most words, including evil. As for your definition: "something that is considered undesirable", you've made the abstraction subjective and therefore meaningless outside of your own perceptions.

2. Passing judgment about an attribute does not require you to have that attribute yourself - it only requires knowledge of what it entails. If we know what evil is, we can say what benevolence looks like, irrespective of whether we we ourselves are evil or not. Even if we are not all-knowing and all-powerful, we can say how omnipotence and omniscience would work, because not knowing everything does not mean we don't know anything.

We know what human evil is, we know what human benevolence looks like. We know nothing of the abstract concept of benevolence and evil outside of ourselves. Once again, we ascribe the words of definition to these abstractions of thought - omnipotence and omniscience - but we can't even fathom what they entail.

3. As to the naturalistic processes such as death, evolution and natural selection - they can neither be evil nor good. Being evil presupposes a conscious choice - something that is not present behind those forces.

Human evil requires conscious choice - I'm not sure if this will help illustrate my idea more clearly, but if you've seen the move Avatar, their God (the energy between all things) takes no action to prevent or inhibit violence and destruction, it acts as a silent observer to the qualms of the humans and the avatars. The non-action of an able and willing God does not make them malevolent. It simply makes them non-actors.

4. The standard of evil that is the basis of this paradox has been clearly established. It is the conscious causation of unnecessary suffering. This basis is also considered to be accepted by any imagined god. And it is this simple standard that damn him as malevolent or impotent.

The conscious causation of unnecessary suffering is indeed evil, as to whether God is contained within this human definition is the argument of this thread. If God really is limitless, all powerful, all knowing, and all good then I see no reason to confine it to our simple definitions which fail at even capturing our own abstractions.