Argument from evil, restated

[Undeceived]

All I need acknowledge is that there are categories of actions which Christians call good and evil, and that the way in which they make this classification is inconsistent with the rest of their beliefs, and that the Christian explanation for the existence of good and evil appears more man-made than anything else.

What I'm asking is, how do you know that good and evil are opposites? How can the founders of Christianity invent two 'opposite' accounts and have anybody understand them to be opposites? Wouldn't the ideas of good and evil have to exist from antiquity, if converts are to be made? As far as we know, they have existed from antiquity. Do you, Zarith, consider most of the popular virtues such as temperance, charity, diligence, patience and kindness 'good'? Do you consider most the popular vices such as greed, sloth, pride and envy 'bad'? They were not invented out of nowhere. People decided what was good and what was evil based on experience. Virtues tended to create a peaceful, healthy community. Vices tended to lead to hurt or war. From what I see in history, good and evil are practically built in. What do you think?

The issue that I have with people arguing the "free-will defense" or the "evil really has to exist" or "evil is just absence of good" is this: suppose that we were all to wake up tomorrow to find that hunger, starvation, famine, disease, natural disasters, war, violent crime, and so on, no longer existed.

If I am to believe the arguments you have made in this thread, then such a state of affairs would have you scratching your head and saying, "Hrmmm, this is clearly a most troubling development, vast amounts of people have been deprived of their exercise of free will and their capacity to love. What deviltry is this?"

And humanity would stop hurting others and allowing hunger... why? For what rational reason? I can think of only one reason: love. But that doesn't exist. So you must be describing a world without rational reasons--a world in which we are robots or animals. Can a robot or animal judge that the sudden absence of hunger, disease and war is a change for the better? Or perhaps I should ask: Are you willing to give up your humanity in order to eliminate evil?

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Don't you find it a tad bit troubling that you've had to assert a game of emotional opposites...?

Show me the error in my logic.