(August 25, 2013 at 1:15 am)genkaus Wrote: First of all, you seem to be equating evil with suffering. An understandable mistake - considering theists often equate omni-benevolent with all good. Suffering among humans can have many causes, from our physiological make-up to large-scale natural disasters. Of those only agent-caused suffering can be conceivably regarded as evil. Regarding an earthquake or disease as an act of evil would be plain insane.
Well sure, under my worldview agent-produced suffering is 'evil'.
Quote:I would regard the "problem of suffering" as a greater argument against theology than the "problem of evil". If "good" is defined as something according to god's will, "evil" as something against it, "free-will" as will independent of god's will - then free-will would be a sufficient explanation for existence of evil. Basically, the argument is "free-will is good because god wants it, but a logical result of it would be the possibility of existence of evil". Regardless of all the other logical gymnastics to justify why god's will should be considered good or why should we consider that as free-will, this part of the argument remains valid.
Wasn't I using the problem of suffering? xD
The rest of your post was quite good. Always nice to be kept on my toes.
