The argument against "evil", theists please come to the defense.

[fr0d0]

I don't even know what you mean when you say things have inherently positive or negative attributes. I honestly don't even understand the proposition. I wouldn't be the one to prove things don't have these attributes, however. Burden of proof and all that.

Ok I understand your problem I think. What I'm trying to get at is the something and nothing distinction. There was nothing, and then there was something. Well, God pre-dates it obviously, but we denote God as non physical and timeless (handy sure, but you get to play along ).

This is Thomas Aquinas stuff from antiquity. God, the potentiality to make something, has to embody in that nothingness, something.

Nothingness is what we might denote as evil, bad, decay etc.. As you've mentioned (I think), the default state things should return to.

Now the creator didn't create nothing. Nothing pre-exists everything. You see where that leads... God didn't create nothing, he created something. God is something. Gods opposite > evil > gravitates towards nothing.

I hope you can see where I'm coming from now with that.

Thanks for going along with the crappy +/- analogy if you did. I thought later that that sucked lol.

omnibenevolent creator God

Can I just point out: Christians don't go along with the definition of God as omnibenevolant AFAIK. Benevolant, yes.

1. It is unnecessary because there didn't need to be a world at all. Also, this objection might carry much more weight if there was no suffering that could be eliminated in another version of the world. Imagine a parallel world with "greater good" sufferings (granted just because) but no needless sufferings that serve no purpose.
2. It could be literally ANY other way. This God had the power to create or not create, and thus could make a world where no suffering was needless and served no purpose.
God added the universe and everything in it, including this "destructive agent". What takes away is directly descended from that God, making God responsible for it.

All I can understand from that is that God could have created nothing and spared us all the sufferring. To me that reads: God could have left evil (nothing) in place and done nothing constructive. (unintentional pun).

Why did he have to create any world at all? Well that's a completely metaphysical question. A question about purpose. Can I say: I don't know?

No, because I am not asking a blanket question. In the context of his moral obligation being a perfectly good being, the question "Why did God make the world?" is perfectly reasonable.
How about this: If I could create a colony of sentient... ants, knowing they would suffer needlessly, would I do so (in the context of mere humanly morality)?
No, because to do so would be immoral.
Same with God. He could have potentially created a world with no needless suffering by changing the world itself to support the change.
you are too stuck with the idea that this world sets the standard and you need to get past that to realize a God such as the one being proposed could have created whatever world he wanted.

1. I don't see how you claim unnecessary suffering. More later on your examples below.
So Yes, God created a world with no unnecessary suffering: this one.
2. Now I can think of an answer: God had to create the world because it was in his nature to do so. Being a creator is part of what makes him him. He couldn't not create.
3. I'm merely focussing on the subject: the God of major religions. I have to bring it back to that, because ultimately, it's what we're both discussing, no?

I'm not interested in entertaining a physically impossible world. He couldn't make a logically impossible world, as I've reasoned above. He cannot make a square circle. Such ideas are a waste of time.

Please show how any suffering is unnecessary.

Sure thing.
Example: African woman dies giving birth in a faraway jungle running from malicious militia. Her child then dies from starvation/disease.
The reason your "the world must logically have both good and evil" defense doesn't work is because God is capable of creating a world where this type of completely unnecessary evil doesn't occur.

Kushti. Thanks.

I'm sure we could think of better examples, taking some seed there and expanding. But let's deal with this.

The situation with the militia is a end point of a series of events that inevitably ended up here. No chance involved. It is merely a playing out of parts.

The child suffers and dies because of the situation it's born into.

I see no unnecessary sufferring. The events led to the outcome. Events took on their natural course and what was always going to happen, happened. It's very sad from the mothers POV and from a human POV. But what has that got to do with the balance of nature that governs all of this? Is nature not playing it's part fully? No, nature is acting out the play just as it should. It can do no other. Action is producing reaction, the necessary course of events always happens.

Did your God create EVERYTHING?

Yes, my God created everything. He didn't create nothing, however.

If your God created every single thing in existence, then he created whatever it is you suggest destroys. If that is the case, then your God is responsible for all destruction.

It is impossible to create nothing, which also has to apply to God.

If you claim your God created all, you basically said your God is illogical.

That's convenient to change what I said to "all". Poor point, poorly executed

If there is another entity alongside God that destroys, you have two new problems, the first being that he is un-evidenced and the second being that a moral God would destroy this evil.

There is satan in christian dogma of course. But did satan pre-exist or co-exist with God? No, God is superior, because satan is a lesser force: a force that had to have something to subtract from.

You might think that something could destroy nothing. But then we couldn't have nothing. We would have to live in a world where something was the default position. Like solid is what all things decay towards. the universe would be setting like a large jelly. In this scenario, nothing would have to be the creative force. Nothing God was nothing and he impacted nothingness all over reality ...except that doesn't quite work.. because to create something he'd have to leave a little bit of solid, which would be the bad stuff he existed to get rid of in the first place. And how can nothing be existant??

Hopefully that serves some purpose lol!

I have explained it, and you just keep coming back with your lame ass excuse for an argument.

You state it, but I've never seen it explained.

You can logically postulate a world with less unneeded suffering than this one. If you can do that, then a benevolent God can't exist. Think back to my African example: a benevolent God could make a world where the timeline is altered in such a way as to spare the life of the woman and child, due to genetics or weather conditions that day or some such anomaly.

As you can see from my address of your African example, I don't accept your point at all. It doesn't explain "unnecessary" at all.

I can know this because an all loving God wouldn't create a reality in which I, as a human with limited knowledge, could think of a morally superior alternative world. It wouldn't be possible, because the world ought not be improvable at all.

I'm sorry, I've missed the part where you came up with a better model for reality.