Epicurus riddle.

[Divinity]

The answer to the riddle is this: What is evil?

I mean for fucks sake, Evil is nothing more than a descriptor we assign actions (often arbitrarily). One persons evil is another persons good.

[Minimalist]

Unhappily for you, drippy, Epicurus' writings did not survive so we are left with this:

Epicurus himself did not leave any written form of this argument. It can be found in Christian theologian Lactantius's Treatise on the Anger of God

Lactantius was Constantine's xtian "advisor" and propagandist.  I suppose we should be grateful that he saved this bit of ancient greek wisdom even if in the guise of "refuting" it.   Lactantius misses the point, of course.

'God' is a dick.

[Drich]

Free will. If I ever get my hands on it, I'm going to slap it silly until it begs for momma.

I'm really tired of it being trotted out as an excuse. Like you say, if someone is raping a kid, the kid's free will is being violated. So either God steps in to violate the free will of the rapist, or he watches as the kid's free will is taken away. Which would be the better option?

Oh wait, the better option would have been to not create humans who would ever even think about raping each other. But that would imply some sort of thoughtful design.

Seriously???

lets give this a little more thought.

Let's say God regulates all sin, down to two or three and the worst thing we could then do to each other was gossip or produce little white lies.. (Do I look fat?/Noooo you look... 'good~')

What or where then would the self righteous move the bar of detestable sin/crime? Gossip and lies would quickly become the rape and murder of that society, because those people would not know/fear anything worse.

Rape and murder are simply the limits God will allow us to do to each other. I however could imagine far worse things, most people consider them to be fairy tales but what if things like literal zombies or the ablity to reanimate someone were possible? What if you could steal/control another person's soul/self awareness? what if we could destroy each other's souls?

The fact that we can imagine far worse and those things have been put out of our reach is a testament to the limits God has placed on man. It is our perception of sin that grades one more wrong than another. To God all sin is equal from the stand point that they all deserve the same death.

[Jenny A]

The riddle does not assume omnibenevolence.  Rather it notices that if there is an omnipotent god, who does not act to quell evil, that god is malevolent.

But here's the thing.. It's not a riddle it is a paradox. as in the Epicurean paradox. It is a point of philosophy in which is supposed to logically dispel God because his supposed attributes contradict the way the world supposedly works. For God to be identified as Malevolent in a paradox, the philosopher presupposes the opposite to be true. This is reflected in Epicurus' actual work "the problem of Evil."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

No. What the philosopher suggests is that it is evil to allow evil if you can prevent it especially if you created the evil in the first place. It's hard to argue with that. But that is what free will advocates are arguing: free will of the evil doer is more important than the evil done to his victims. If you believe there is evil in the world and that allowing evil is evil, and you don't buy the free will argument you are left with three choices:

1. God is omnipotent but evil.
2. God is not omnipotent.
3. There is no god.

You appear to have chosen option one. There's plenty of Biblical support for that. But why would you worship such a god?

[Edwardo Piet]

doesn't this discussion still beg the question of the possibility of the existence of a non-anthropomorphic god?

Holy fuck I literally made a joke about thread being necro'd 2 posts before you nercro'd it

Hi, I'm Sam Harris and I approve of this necropost.

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Ok, I'm not Sam Harris

Honest.

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[Drich]

But here's the thing.. It's not a riddle it is a paradox. as in the Epicurean paradox. It is a point of philosophy in which is supposed to logically dispel God because his supposed attributes contradict the way the world supposedly works. For God to be identified as Malevolent in a paradox, the philosopher presupposes the opposite to be true. This is reflected in Epicurus' actual work "the problem of Evil."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

No. What the philosopher suggests is that it is evil to allow evil if you can prevent it especially if you created the evil in the first place.  It's hard to argue with that.

Didn't read the link did you? The link represents 'the problem of evil' and how it has been argued for literally thousands of years! I don't have to argue with you because you are the one who literally arguing with how this paradox is accepted and defined.

But that is what free will advocates are arguing: free will of the evil doer is more important than the evil done to his victims.  If you believe there is evil in the world and that allowing evil is evil, and you don't buy the free will argument you are left with three choices:

1. God is omnipotent but evil.
2. God is not omnipotent.
3. There is no god.

You appear to have chosen option one.  There's plenty of Biblical support for that. But why would you worship such a god?

We are slaves to either God or sin, their is no free will either.

So why do I want to worship God? I do not want to be bound/be a slave to sin.

[Homeless Nutter]

We are slaves to either God or sin, [...]

...or the rhythm.

So why do I want to worship God?[...]

Uhm... Because deep down you're an insecure little b*tch, who wants to be mothered forever? Yeah, I like that - I'm gonna think that...

[The Inquisition]

No. What the philosopher suggests is that it is evil to allow evil if you can prevent it especially if you created the evil in the first place.  It's hard to argue with that.

Didn't read the link did you? The link represents 'the problem of evil' and how it has been argued for literally thousands of years! I don't have to argue with you because you are the one who literally arguing with how this paradox is accepted and defined.

But that is what free will advocates are arguing: free will of the evil doer is more important than the evil done to his victims.  If you believe there is evil in the world and that allowing evil is evil, and you don't buy the free will argument you are left with three choices:

1. God is omnipotent but evil.
2. God is not omnipotent.
3. There is no god.

You appear to have chosen option one.  There's plenty of Biblical support for that. But why would you worship such a god?

We are slaves to either God or sin, their is no free will either.

So why do I want to worship God? I do not want to be bound/be a slave to sin.

Nonsense, you don't want to fry in hell. That's all the Christian belief system is, the fear of punishment.

[Drich]

Didn't read the link did you? The link represents 'the problem of evil' and how it has been argued for literally thousands of years! I don't have to argue with you because you are the one who literally arguing with how this paradox is accepted and defined.

We are slaves to either God or sin, their is no free will either.

So why do I want to worship God? I do not want to be bound/be a slave to sin.

Nonsense, you don't want to fry in hell. That's all the Christian belief system is, the fear of punishment.

says who?

If anyone seeks heaven simply because they fear Hell. Then it can be said They do not understand what heaven is.

[Drich]

We are slaves to either God or sin, [...]

...or the rhythm.

So why do I want to worship God?[...]

Uhm... Because deep down you're an insecure little b*tch, who wants to be mothered forever? Yeah, I like that - I'm gonna think that...

I live here and now, and it is to the here and now that I concern myself with. If heaven is as described Great! if not then I'll deal with it as it comes in the here and now.