Knowing everything and allowing evil

[RW_9]

How many threads does the "problem of evil" pop up on? I'm new here and it's already getting old. I think I'm beginning to remember why I slowly left most forums/communities years ago.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

How many threads does the "problem of evil" pop up on? I'm new here and it's already getting old. I think I'm beginning to remember why I slowly left most forums/communities years ago.

On forums such as this the topic is irrelevant. The point is to interact with people of like mind,and to ridicule Christians and other naive deists.

If you are very lucky,your mind may occasionally be stimulated,instead of simply having your world view and prejudices constantly reinforced.

Good luck with finding a forum in which people care about your personal expectations.

[RW_9]

I'm not ignorant enough to have forum expectations. I just wasn't aware that there were still people around that cared about the problem of evil, even on the intrawebz.

[The Grand Nudger]

You'll see the problem of evil crop up as often as apologists invoke their loving god. Sometimes people have just come across it on the other side of the fence as well (people like to share things that are new to them). People also like to vent.

[chi pan]

your words are like that of a child saying he doesn't have to listen to his parents. the commandments do not fit the definition of arbitrary because they all have a reason.

1.Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

not based on random choice or personal whim. they are based on reason. many aggree with most of the reasoning. examples: murder, stealing, lying, etc. you may not understand the reasoning but that doesn't take it away from it.

I don't have to listen to my parents, and there may very well be consequences, but that has nothing to do with whether or not my parents are right or wrong, good or evil. That's just power or leverage. Might making right.

You actually linked that definition as if it supported your disagreement with me? Bolding mine, "personal whim"="God says so". Unless god is just communicating to us what is good, and it is not based upon his whims. In that case, I'll worship that which exists around your god and instructs him in how he should instruct us. I'll just worship good itself. I'm not a huge fan of human middlemen, a cosmic middleman is even less palatable.

i think you've missed the point. you don't have to listen to your parents, true. but when they say look both ways when you cross the street, they're not being arbitrary. they have a reason for telling you so. likewise, God has a reason for giving us his commandments.
personel whim does not equal God said so. doing something because you were told to by someone you trust is not arbitrary. you may not understand why but that doesn't mean the reason does not exist.

so you say you will worship the word of God which is good but not God himself? all that is good comes from God and therefore you cannot worship what is good without worshiping God. but if you wish to worship the earth, i don't care. i however will worship something greater than this earth.

and last of all, God does not seperate us from what is good. he does not channel good to us from something else. he is the source of all that is good. he is no middleman. you can worship all that you see that is good, or worship the one who created it. you can give credit to the painting or the artist.

[Rokcet Scientist]

He put you up to this, didn't he, Chip?

[The Grand Nudger]

i think you've missed the point. you don't have to listen to your parents, true. but when they say look both ways when you cross the street, they're not being arbitrary. they have a reason for telling you so. likewise, God has a reason for giving us his commandments.
personel whim does not equal God said so. doing something because you were told to by someone you trust is not arbitrary. you may not understand why but that doesn't mean the reason does not exist.

so you say you will worship the word of God which is good but not God himself? all that is good comes from God and therefore you cannot worship what is good without worshiping God. but if you wish to worship the earth, i don't care. i however will worship something greater than this earth.

and last of all, God does not seperate us from what is good. he does not channel good to us from something else. he is the source of all that is good. he is no middleman. you can worship all that you see that is good, or worship the one who created it. you can give credit to the painting or the artist.

I didn't miss a point you don't have a point. I concede the argument, god has reasons. I'm going to worship those reasons instead of god. It doesn't matter to me what any words of god might be. There are reasons. I don't even know what those reasons are, but we're agreeing that they exist. We're not talking about paintings are we? Put down the bulleted sound byte sheet.

[Abracadabra]

and last of all, God does not seperate us from what is good. he does not channel good to us from something else. he is the source of all that is good. he is no middleman. you can worship all that you see that is good, or worship the one who created it. you can give credit to the painting or the artist.

The very notion that God is the source of all that is good, is clearly utter nonsense.

In fact, for this to be true would violate the concept of free will in humans.

No human could do a good act on their own free will if God is the sole source of all that is good.

So this mythology shoots itself in the foot right there.

It can't possibly be true because it demands oxyomoronic absurdities.

This mythology proves itself wrong at every turn of the page.

The more you preach it, the more you prove it's false.

[Violet]

It's usually argued that allowing evil was necessary to allow free-will.

A problem with this is that we know some people are not evil but good. God could have just created the good people and spared the evil people that would go to hell from being created.

I believe myself to have a 'good heart'... yet I still appreciate having the options of 'evil'. Even then... I rarely intentionally do something I regard as 'evil', and then only when I believe it is worth it.

God is believed to have knowledge of all potential souls. Even if it's 1 in a trillion souls that are good and would not do any serious evil, out of infinite potential souls, he could pick only those ones.

Options are nice to have... I'd be one hell of a lot less 'good hearted' without the ability to do evil. And my appreciation for the difference between them would be that much lower.

At the very least, he could have only created the people that would not earn hell.

Oh, is that the least 'he' could do? I take it he would have left out the cats, both great and domestic?

[Rokcet Scientist]

If God wants to be good, then He must also be evil. Because there can be no black without white.
So the two go together like peas in a pod. Neither can exist without the other.
Since He is omniscient, He knows that.

So if He had wanted to spare us, His creation, from evil he should have taken a hike.
He didn't. So he clearly did not want to spare us from evil! Quite the opposite. God deliberately thrusted evil upon us.

I.o.w.: God is a fascistic sadist.