(February 13, 2015 at 11:44 am)orangebox21 Wrote:(February 5, 2015 at 3:50 pm)FreeTony Wrote: Having a discussion on another forum, I am astounded at the following argument:God created all things. Generally when using this statement the Biblical theist is qualifying 'things' to refer to the material world. God created all [material] things. Given that evil is not material, it is not a 'thing' within the parameters of this definition. Obviously evil is a 'thing', just not a material one.
God created everything, but he didn't create diseases/cancer etc because these aren't "things".
So we end up with both the claim that everything must have been designed due to blah blah blah, followed by "except all the bad bits which weren't designed".
I thought at first this guy was just a moron, but this argument seems to not even come from him. It is in the form "evil is not a thing" which is slightly better until you try to insert real life examples in, after which it again fails.
When you get arguments like this, you realise they are just trying to say anything to avoid having to think about it and hope it goes away.
...
Unfortunately for you, the OP isn't about evil in the abstract, but about particular physical things, diseases and cancer. Being things, diseases and cancer were created by god, if god created all things.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
