"God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil"

[Godscreated]

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Hello, I am new to the forum, it's been a while since I've been in a theological discussion (after being banned off 'reasonable faith' for making someone butthurt by using sarcasm on someone who literally thought the devil was causing all the atheists to behave as they do), and I also don't believe in... Thor, Apolo, Krishna, Zeus, you get the point.

But people seems to get alittle rustled when I pick on the Judeo christian god, like it's special god (aka, special pleading), then ask me to justify my disbelief.

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I often point out that the problem of evil is a good reason to not believe, but an even more often apologetic's sentence is thrown out: "God has morally sufficient reasons to permit evil".

What problem with evil, you need to explain this before you make the assumption that this problem is a reason not to believe in God. You've thrown out a thought to dismiss God and never gave any kind of reason that there's are problem with evil. So as I see it the statement," God has morally sufficient reason to allow evil."

I don't know about any of you, but I think this answer is truly a cop out. It's a rephrase of "god works in mysterious ways".

No it's not, the statement "God works in mysterious ways" is an explanation of why God does things we do not understand. The statement "God has morally sufficient reason to allow evil" is a statement made from knowledge. The reason lies within the pages of scripture.

And the 'mysteriousness' is the fact we can never know the mind of god,

Just exactly how do you reason we can't know the mind of God, why do you think He gave use the Bible. It's true we can't know the complete mind of an omniscient and omnipotent God, our minds would not be able to comprehend that kind or amount of knowledge.

and he 'probably' has good reasons why he gives babies aids, and aborts even more children every day.

Where did you get your information that God gives babies AIDS, last I checked it was the irresponsibility of the parents that caused the babies to contract this disease. Again where did you get your information that God aborts children, if you're talking about miscarriages that's a physical problem with the mother or fetus. By your stance on believing God causes abortions and you believe He is evil in doing so, I take it you're... no it would mean by necessity you are against abortion. Good to hear that.

They argue that "you'd have to be omniscient to say if god doesn't have morally sufficient reasons.

They who, seems you're speaking for some unknow persons. We have scripture to determine that God has morally sufficient reason to allow evil. You are trying to turn your reasoning on Christians, to support your ideas, that's dishonest at best. Christians know they can go to scripture to find out God's thoughts on evil and why it exists and is necessary.

If we changed on thing about the current system of the Earth, we wouldn't be able to tell if the overall suffering decreased or increased overall!". This is basically an appeal to mystery and the unknown, and the response itself is adhoc (I won't explain that here, but Richard Carrier used Bayes theorem on god, which actually made an all good god statistically impossible when theists gave that excuse, an evil god is much more probably, talking in the millions of times more probable).

You are trying to make philosophy a truth, when it's only a persons idea that can't be proven. You also have changed the subject of the original OP of evil to suffering. What makes you believe the two go hand in hand, why is suffering evil, you believe in a naturalistic world where evil and suffering are not the same.
Evil: causing or threatening harm or distress; wicked.
Suffer: to feel of endure pain --- suffering: pain, misery, hardship
The organism that causes malaria does not try to cause harm or distress, without the intention to cause there is no evil. Evil is an intentional thing not accidental or a result of sickness or misfortune.

To win this is actually very simple, I can get us to agnosticism in a few seconds, here is what my reply would be:

You'd have to be omniscient to know if god DOES have morally sufficient reasons!

This is the very reasoning you were trying to apply to Christians to satisfy your need to win an argument, winning is what you care about, when learning should be the goal.

The question of whether god has morally sufficient reasons is UNKNOWN, so therefore you are unjustified in proposing a god. Also, as the proposer of this god, you have failed to meet the burden of proof.

The burden of proof you believe Christians do not have is in reality found in scriptures, so the reasons are known and by your reasoning God is real. You apparently do not know the scriptures and at best you've only read through the Bible without any real study.

It is not me who has to prove god has insufficient reasons, but for you to prove god does have sufficient reasons. You've just proposed an unknown filler "god has x", we don't know what 'x' is. This is simply ad hoc excuse making for Jesus.

I'm not sure why you used Jesus in this statement but, I would think it's out of ignorance. No one was asking you to prove God has reason to allow suffering, the Christian is willing to do so. It's within the pages of scripture, we do not have to go any farther than the scriptures to determine God's reasons, being the Bible is about God.

But I want to go further than that, and shoulder the burden. So, we need to evaluate the sentence: "Is there unnecessary suffering in the world?" all I have to do is provide ONE example, and if there is unnecessary suffering, god cannot logically exist, as it is a contradiction.

You are not shouldering any thing, all you're doing is dancing around the real subject by equating evil with suffering. The subject you brought was evil not suffering. God does allow both and has real and righteous reasons to do so. We actually should be glad He does, the only other option is total destruction by the power of a God who hates sin. Now to challenge your suffering of man, why is it necessary to eliminate God because man brings suffering upon himself? What reason do you have to believe God can't allow suffering or evil for that matter?

I think the answer is pretty obvious to everyone: Yes! There is unnecessary suffering. Lets give one example: Malaria. So, does malaria have to exist? No. If we removed it tomorrow, would overall people be in a state of less suffering? Yes. So it logically follows that because malaria exists, god cannot logically exist, as he has the power to personally intervene, but does not.

That's pretty much a lame notion you have, again why is it God can't exist if malaria and the suffering it brings exists. Where does it say God must eliminate suffering for disease, how is that in any remote way logical? Why does God have to eliminate suffering, because you think that's the way He should work, you are saying God exists for my needs and desires, yet He being my creator means nothing if he doesn't serve me as I desire. Seems to me you're the one trying to be a god of omniscient power to make such a statement.

The only way theists can now hold their positions is by maintaining: "Removing malaria would not decrease suffering, as we can never the know the large scale consequences of stopping one thing in a large system" which is about logically inconsistent as "Jonny removing his hand from a hot stove will not decrease his pain, as we can never know the large scale consequences of stopping one small thing in a large system". It's pretty obvious that if you remove something that causes suffering, it will reduce suffering, well generally.

The best thing Jonny could remove is his stupidity and not put his hand on the stove. Removing malaria may or may not decrease suffering, we can not know this, malaria exist and that is what we have to deal with. Christians do not need to claim anything for or against suffering, God told Adam that suffering would always be a part of man's life, this suffering god allows because of the sin we have in our lives.

God has no morally sufficient reasons for permitting suffering/evil, as this evil is ultimately pointless and causes overall more suffering, which is completely needless and obviously leads to no ultimate good.

You have failed to shoulder the burden of proof as you said you would do, you have not shown why evil or suffering are pointless, God says in His word they have purpose, I've not seen your rebuttal of what God has said.

Atheists: Winning the argument since 33 AD.

Atheist were at a loss on how to disregard God in AD 33 and have not made any progress over 2000 years.

GC