Epicurean Paradox

[Ace Otana]

So we can decide where we want to spend eternity. Do we want to live with out sin for an eternity with God? or do we want to be eternally seperated from God?

Neither. I don't believe in god or sin. The question is pointless.

[Drich]

So there is no such thing as evil in the world at all, except when committed by true believers in God.

Agnostic Atheists are exempt from evil, since it is neither malicious nor intended to be outside will of God. You cannot maliciously intend to refuse something which you do not believe exists and for which no evidence exists. It would be like saying you are maliciously intending to refuse the will of a spaghetti monster. It cannot be malicious nor intentional.

So only the deeply convinced religious can commit evil?

Actually.. starting to agree with you here Drich.

So.. in turn with your line of logic here; if you stop believing in the laws of gravity you will no longer be bound by them? Is that how you and superman do it? You just stop believing and then you can fly?

In truth whether you openly wish to be outside of God's expressed will or not, is not for you to judge. Like wise the malice you have in your heart to be outside of God's expressed will is to be determined by God. Not by formal declaration.

Just like with gravity God does not need your permission to judge you life against His expressed will.

[FallentoReason]

So.. in turn with your line of logic here; if you stop believing in the laws of gravity you will no longer be bound by them? Is that how you and superman do it? You just stop believing and then you can fly?

A 'law' is something man-made. Gravity would exist whether we aknowledged it as a 'law' or not. The difference between gravity and god is that gravity has a direct consequence. God on the other hand seems to be absent. I don't feel any more or less blessed now than when I used to follow God's 'laws'. It's not something that interacts with us like gravity.

[Nine]

Somebody grab me a God-o-meter... Wait you mean god has no observable or measurable effect on the universe? I am tempted to say that this god fellow may not be real.. Hmmmm

[Ace Otana]

If to be evil and sinful means to intentionality (maliciously or not) disobey god / be outside of god's will then atheists are exempt from sin and evil. How can we intentionally be outside/disobey god if we don't believe god and sin even exist?

[FallentoReason]

I meant that in the most sincere way!

At the peak of my faith I can tell you, in all honesty, that I never witnessed a miracle. I would always hear about them from other Christians I knew. Even then, those very same Christians would pray for my sicknesses and I would honestly tell them I wasn't healed. My faith meter on max we're talking.. And everyone looking on or involved in prayer would just say 'keep the faith'! Well.. where's the results? Like I said, never experienced or saw any. Only word of mouth is where my evidence for them lies.

Sorry about my rant. Didn't mean to epically derail the discussion but I couldn't resist letting that out....

[NoMoreFaith]

So.. in turn with your line of logic here; if you stop believing in the laws of gravity you will no longer be bound by them? Is that how you and superman do it? You just stop believing and then you can fly?

Surely you can do better than that as a refutation.

Stop believing in an empirically proven and testable theory as opposed to the mythological supreme being posited among thousands.
That is a poor comparison and you know it. The point is very clear. If Evil is MALICIOUS, which spiteful and deliberate, it requires the presupposition of a God in which to deliberately spite.
The same goes for Intent, without belief in God, it is impossible to intentionally go against his will any more than you can intentionally go against the will of the faerie queen.

In truth whether you openly wish to be outside of God's expressed will or not, is not for you to judge. Like wise the malice you have in your heart to be outside of God's expressed will is to be determined by God. Not by formal declaration.

You misunderstand the concept because your mind is too deeply ingrained with the presupposition of a 'God'.

God has not made himself evident, nor has he provided anything to suggest his existence is likely. All arguments about creation are meaningless if there lots of equiprobable explanations for the same effect. I'm being kind when I say equiprobable to avoid accusation of bias.
The same goes for the bible, but without using personal bias, you are unable to conceive of the idea that the Bible being an account of the means to know this being is not the most probable explanation for its existence.

The same does not go for gravity, there are not equiprobable explanations of it. We see its effects everyday, and they are measurable, we can even conceive of a gravitational constant.
You can do no such thing for a supreme being.

In doing so, you dismiss all other explanations for both the universe, the bible, and every tenet of your own personal believes, based on the private assertion of its fact.

Just like with gravity God does not need your permission to judge you life against His expressed will.

When you throw a ball, you trust it will come down again, because you have observed it as such.
When you pray to God, you trust he answers, because you privately believe that he does, and if he doesn't you must have done something wrong, or had a false motive.

If you can't tell the difference between Gravity and God, you have a serious problem in your life, that you cannot discern, or filter the fictitious from the evident.
All you can do, is assert the fictitious and fervently hope you aren't suffering from delusion.

[Mister Agenda]

I know you have heard this answer before. But we live in a fallen world. What that means is that at the time of the fall the reigns of this world the care for it and all of the things in it including infections and earth quakes are now our responsibility to manage and to deal with. If We want to be like God and enjoy the freedom it offers, we also have to accept the responsibility of that job.

I can't help but notice that people who choose to hand the reigns over to God don't seem to enjoy any special immunity to natural evil. So apparently it's whether or not we want to be like God. And it's ludicrous to postulate that it's meaningful to accept an impossible responsibility. It's like a parent who catches a small child in the cookie jar and expecting that from now on they have to do the dishes and the laundry and the shopping, cook the food, and pay the rent; since they want to be like the parent and enjoy the freedom it offers. In other words, you're making God out to be petty.

That means it is up to us to manage disease and sickness, it is up to us to manage the damage and destruction of the planet, or to pick up after said D&D has ravaged the land. Again it is all apart of freewill. If you want to be independent of the Expressed will of God then it is on you to manage the ALL of consequences of that desire. If you want to be God then be God and hold back the hurricanes an keep the tornadoes from destroying entire cities.. Can't?

Sure can't. You're the humble one who accepts that you're not God, (just one of his representatives on Earth) maybe he'll stop earthquakes and storms for you since you know your place.

Then how about we do our part in stopping the one thing that has taken more lives and destroyed more land than all of the natural disasters to this point. War. This is well within the firm grasp of man and yet we still have war. War is a far greater threat than anything else that has plagued man from the time of the garden. Why wasn't that on your list?

Perhaps my writing was not as clear as I thought. I only listed natural evil. The whole point of the post, from start to finish, was about natural evil. War was not on the list because it is not a natural evil. Evil it is, natural it is not. In our power to do something about, unlike the shaking of the planet and the fury of storms. It's less surprising that imperfect humans born in sin have war than that a perfect craftsman makes a world that's rattly and drafty or is prone to become so if humans eat the wrong fruit.

Y'know, another explanation is that there's no perfect craftsman so nothing is perfect. Our planet was formed by natural processes and is impersonally dangerous and there's no supernatural power watching out for us or out to get us. We're tribal and prone to combativeness, and are our own worst enemy because there's nothing higher on the food chain anymore.

The tale of the garden could be a nice allegory for our propensity to do things we know better than to do because of our conflicting impulses of aggressiveness and tribalism versus our empathy and community. But some people have to take it literally.

[Faith No More]

So we can decide where we want to spend eternity. Do we want to live with out sin for an eternity with God? or do we want to be eternally seperated from God?

So, let's sum up. God will not impede on the free will of a child raping murderer, because he wants you(and others) to make the decision to be with or without him.

Sorry but you have not refuted the Epicurean quote. In fact, you have explained his malevolence in detail.

[Drich]

So.. in turn with your line of logic here; if you stop believing in the laws of gravity you will no longer be bound by them? Is that how you and superman do it? You just stop believing and then you can fly?

A 'law' is something man-made. Gravity would exist whether we aknowledged it as a 'law' or not. The difference between gravity and god is that gravity has a direct consequence. God on the other hand seems to be absent. I don't feel any more or less blessed now than when I used to follow God's 'laws'. It's not something that interacts with us like gravity.

So if you do not commit adultery you do not feel that it blesses your marriage? Or if you do not steal it does not count towards you standing and integrity in your own community? Or by not murdering people you do not see it as a way of staying out of Jail?

I would say the consequences of your action are present you just have to acknowledge them.

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If to be evil and sinful means to intentionality (maliciously or not) disobey god / be outside of god's will then atheists are exempt from sin and evil. How can we intentionally be outside/disobey god if we don't believe god and sin even exist?

you see what you had to do in order to make your arguement work here? you had to change the scriptural definition to accommodate your personal philosophy. The problem is, God is not a respecter of personal philosophies. We in the bible have been given a set of parameters in which to understand and expect God's judgment. Burying you head in the sand by changing what you can not or do not want to acknowledge does not change the standard in which we have been given, and will be judged.

Just so we are clear I am giving you the definition for malicious, because your understanding of the words seems to be more of an emotional state.

ma·li·cious   /məˈlɪʃəs/ Show Spelled[muh-lish-uhs] Show IPA
adjective
1. full of, characterized by, or showing malice; malevolent; spiteful: malicious gossip.
2. Law . vicious, wanton, or mischievous in motivation or purpose.

In this way Evil is a vicious, wanton, or mischievous in motivation or purposed state outside of God's expressed Standard, law, or will. Again your personal acknowledgment of your placement outside of God's Expressed Will is not necessary. You will be judged as such independently from your acknowledgment of God, the standard He has given, or your proximity to it.