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The argument against "evil", theists please come to the defense.
#63
RE: The argument against "evil", theists please come to the defense.
(July 21, 2012 at 2:38 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Well, from the perspective, is that non-suffering and peace, will be the end state of every living being eventually. Given that, was suffering worth character building? I propose perhaps it is. Perhaps anything that enriches character building is worth any given suffering, because suffering would be trivial given that every being would living in a state of peace and happiness eventually.

Also perhaps another premise is that for God to create a world which some suffering would bring about a greater good, some suffering would not. Therefore the first premise I purposed in this thread may not be true. It maybe true, it may not be. Perhaps there is delicate balance here we can't articulate.

What we are talking about he is a creator who can create any world as he wishes, as well as its contents.
It follows that anything not logically impossible or contradictive could be created.
It then follows that a God could create humans with inborn virtues that didn't need to be born from suffering.
Also, the "greater good" defence doesn't work. For example, there are situations where there can be no character building in a situation of suffering, no choice on the part of the sufferers, and no way to stop it on the part of outsiders.
If an African woman dies giving birth to her baby after being chased from her home by rapists and plunderers and the baby perishes shortly after from disease and starvation, what good came from that? Death by nature all around, yet not a soul will ever hear of it.

(July 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: I think I've already said, but I'll say it another way. Suffering isn't inherently evil. To me, evolution is the magical process whereby life exists. Suffering of sentient life forms is integral to that. You, in your limited egotistical world view might find that distasteful, and I understand how, at the micro level we struggle to justify it. The same criteria would apply to plate tectonics / seismic activity / natural disasters. Scientists not so recently proclaimed the necessity of these phenomena to life on earth.

Cool story bro. Also, magic has nothing to do with biology. Just because suffering is integral to life as we understand it doesn't mean that it is justifiable for a loving God to create such a world. A loving God would abstain from creating a world where suffering was necessary.

(July 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: This reality works.
Sure.
(July 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: God fits with it.
Nope.
(July 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Utopian dreams of an un suffering universe don't pan out practically.
This is why God doesn't fit with the universe. A perfectly moral God wouldn't create a universe that isn't perfectly good and moral, as to reflect himself. No moral human would create a system of suffering, so why would a perfectly moral God do so?
It doesn't have to be the case that suffering = evil for the argument to apply. You are suffering from black-and-white thinking. The argument applies to any form of moral deviation, and natural suffering isn't subtracted from the equasion simply because it is necessary.
It might not even be necessary- could there potentially be a world where no natural suffering existed, nor ever would? Then again, it isn't my problem to have to deal with the proposition that there is no possible world without suffering in some form or another.
My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true.
Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.
-Bertrand Russell
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Messages In This Thread
RE: The argument against "evil", theists please come to the defense. - by Skepsis - July 21, 2012 at 2:58 pm

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