Have christians ever been able to formulate a response to the problem of evil?
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UFOs Are A Psyop Shirt $21.68 |
Have christians ever been able to formulate a response to the problem of evil?
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Talk religion
Have christians ever been able to formulate a response to the problem of evil?
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UFOs Are A Psyop Shirt $21.68 |
Such a response is called a "theodicy".
More like "theo-idiocy"
Yes is called Gnosticism
spbp
you are just in error about what is evil and what is not
suffering pain is not evil, if god created a universe with no pain where you experienced the pleasure of a million hits of heroin a second you would cease to exist, you would not be what you are, a soul with personality and complex thoughts, you could not appreciate art and literature, think about philosophy, you'd just sit motionless enjoying your coom until your brain becomes mush and you are just a chemical reaction, so what is to be done, how does god cultivate you into a better being
is your life really that bad, are your challenges really that great, is it an ordeal to pick up the phone right now and call your mother or get off Oyish to study
god could've created a world with all of that and without pain.
why would god do that, pain is not evil, pain can be good sometimes
The times when pain can be described as a good is on account of some other evil. Sure, pain can help to notify people of an illness or injury and so it is a so-called 'necessary evil', but an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent god could and would eliminate injury, illness, and thereby eliminate the need for pain, hitting two birds with one stone. Why didn't it?
>Why didn't it?
Well with respects to OP, this is irrelevant.
If God could contort the laws of logic and accomplish his goals with a pain free world as you describe, then God can also create a world with pain and it not be evil. Therefore OP's argument is moot.
Really the only decent argument of the atheist is "no proof lol", everything else is pointless wrangling.
Strange then how heavenly beings manage to have a form of free thought while still being totally good and existing in a state of bliss.
Also the point of the problem of evil is not that humanists think there is something wrong with the universe, Christians do: The corruption of our otherwise perfect nature with sin is a fundamental part of the theology of most Christian denominations, some of which even argue humans exist in a state of total depravity. In a logical materialistic universe you would expect there to be certain limits on pleasure, built in flaws and limits in lifeforms, finite resources, winners and losers. You would not expect all these things in a system designed by an all powerful benevolent entity.
There's no reason to make the assumption that point #4 is true.
If God exists and is supremely good, why would evil not exist? God and evil are two entities that can exist indepedently.
>falls over
refer to points 1, 2 and 3.
Eliminating evil would necessarily include the complete annihiliation of human beings, which we do actually assume will happen eventually, but not at this time. This is so that more people can be saved first. I'm making the assumption that it would be better for less people to go to hell.
Why do you treat it as either-or, as if we must compromise on one thing to get the other? Is god not omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent?
Because it is either-or. And it is not about our decisions, but what God wills.
Exxept it's not. if god was omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, god could and would eliminate evil
>Eliminating evil would necessarily include the complete annihiliation of human beings
No
God is omnipotent, remember?
He can do ANYTHING, there's no limit or conditions for him
That's dualism, heretical.
Explain to me how.
How the idea that God isn't all powerful is heretical?
God is all powerful, but God is one thing that is seperate from evil. Evil does not exist as a consequence of God's own behavior, and thus, God and evil are two seperate things. God can exist alongside the fact that evil exists; there's no contradiction there. That's my point, I don't see how that would be heretical.
If god is all powerful and good then he would destroy evil. He hasnt either because he cant or doesnt want to/he made evil.
>If god is all powerful and good then he would destroy evil
Why? Because you want him to?
Destroying evil is good. If god wont then he isnt good.
So you think the best thing God could do is completely destroy all human beings?
Not to create them in the first place. Why would a perfect being NEED imperfect beings to walk and shit around?
No, you are confused. You are saying at once that evil exists dependently and independently from God. If evil exists dependently, as the absence of God, then there is no problem. But to posit that it exists "independently" is heresy.
>God and evil are two entities that can exist indepedently.
Pop quiz: what would an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being necessarily do to evil?
Jesus died on the cross so that evil would be eliminated. In heaven there is no evil. This post is nonsense.
Human evil is the result of free will. Natural evil is the result of the primal corruption of the world which also is a result of free will.
God does not eliminate this evil because it would contradict humanity's self-determination. He is able to, but does not out of love for us. Those who are made to suffer unduly in the world will be made whole after. God is Just.
god could create a world with free will and without evil. Why did god not do so?
There's honestly no good way to address that question. I've contemplated it before. Many Christians will say that God allowed the fall to happen so that he could redeem us, but that seems unnecessary. Some people would say that God allows evil to occur so that we can better appreciate God's own goodness, which will ultimately be revealed in all splendor in heaven. This, too, seems unnecessary.
All I can really think, is that by creating a world where evil can reasonably occur, is that God is giving us a choice to accept or reject him. If worshipping God is good, and God creates a world without evil, then isn't that the same thing as creating a world without free will? You cannot do evil because evil does not exist, so you only serve God all the time? How is that a choice?
By allowing us to do evil, God is giving us a choice. Serve Satan or serve God. I don't think that it's possible to give someone only one choice and then simultaneously claim that they do, in fact, have free will. That's my input on the subject.
While me might differ in our conclusions I appreciate the amount of thought you've given to the subject.
I personally value free will very highly, even the freedom to make the "wrong" choices.
The issue I have with this argument is that the introduction of evil is not sufficient to provide us with free will.
If we assume that some people go to hell and that God is omniscient, that means that when God creates us he knows what choices we will make with our "free will" and whether or not we will go to hell.
This means that God creates some people that he knows fully well will go to hell. This is contradictory with the idea that God is omnibenevolent.
The fundamental issue with citing free will as a response the problem of evil is that if an omniscient entity exists nobody has free will. If there's someone or something out there that knows every decision you will make in your life before you make it that's the same thing as predetermined destiny.
The only way I see out of the problem of evil is to assume that God either can't do everything, doesn't know everything, isn't perfectly benevolent, or some combination of the above.
He might still be very powerful or very wise or very benevolent, but not perfectly so.
It can be quite uncomfortable to consider the idea that God could make a mistake, but I don't see why it has to be. If God is so far beyond our understanding, how are we expected to know if something God did was a mistake or on purpose? We simply have no way to find out.
I kind of wish that an imperfect God were explored in Christianity more. It seems like a really solid solution to the problem of evil.
>This means that God creates some people that he knows fully well will go to hell. This is contradictory with the idea that God is omnibenevolent.
it's hard for us to understand why God chooses to allow some things to happen because we dont have the same infinite foresight that He has. basically, having knowledge of something happening in the future does not mean that you caused it to happen. the person that went to hell had the free will to choose to reject God
As already said before in this thread, there is no such thing as evil, only the absence of God and as such goodness.
See here
Also, while it is true that God is omniscient, and so able to see the whole lives of people ahead, time is not linear, and since we are endowed with free will, we are able to change our paths at anytime. God, in His infinite wisdom, can see all these different paths we can take, and accepts if we take the path in which we don’t follow him.
>a helpless toddler being tortured and mutilated by a psychopath has free will and is able to change his path at anytime
sounds great
completely disingenuous. this has nothing to do with choosing whether you want to accept God or not
>Also, while it is true that God is omniscient, and so able to see the whole lives of people ahead, time is not linear, and since we are endowed with free will, we are able to change our paths at anytime. God, in His infinite wisdom, can see all these different paths we can take, and accepts if we take the path in which we don’t follow him.
God should in his infinite wisdom be able to foresee futures where children are born into completely fricked up circumstances through no fault of their own, there is no choice involved here, just a supposedly benevolent, loving and omnipotent being who refuses to step in when the most innocent members of his flock are put through unimaginable suffering by wicked people
It is not God duty to change the ways of men, and thus, to correct the injustices perpetrated by men, only men can change the ways of men, by following God teachings. When we demand that God intervenes in our lives, we ignore our own duty to follow His teachings and spread them to other people, and stopping such injustices from ever happening in the first place.
tl;dr there is supposedly a being who loves you and only wants the best for you and he is all powerful and capable of helping you at all times while also being able to see your entire future yet he refuses to do anything even if he knows you will be made to suffer a hundred times beyond what a human should reasonably go through
Like i said, there is no point in demanding that God acts i our favor, since His teachings have already been revealed by His son. Moreover, by making us in His image and giving us free will and allowing us to suffer, it also allow us to chose His path through conscious choice, thus feeling His love and contemplating His wisdom in a way no animal could ever do.
>Like i said, there is no point in demanding that God acts i our favor, since His teachings have already been revealed by His son.
You mean his prophet, peace be upon him
>change his path at anytime
Do you mean the psycopath?
If so, then yes he can, that does not mean, however, that he does not deserve punishment. In the world of men, he will face the punishment men decide is appropriate to give. However, when it comes to God, the matter of redemption depends entirely on the man alone. If he truly changes his ways, no matter how unlikely, and sees the error of what he has done, it still possible to find salvation, but that depends only on him.
No, I'm talking about the toddler. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where a little toddler is having acid poured on its face and its limbs chopped off, what sort of agency or free will does it have to 'change its path'?
what path? the toddler's choice to accept God is not removed here
The path of not being a tortured, disfigured cripple for the rest of its existence. How could it possibly know about god and why should it accept him?
I dont understand, why does the toddler needs to “change its path”?
When i say “change its path” i mean between following God or not, which is a conscious choice.
Why should it believe in god?
Imagine it like a boxing match. If you record a boxing match, and then I spoil it by telling you who won the fight before you watch it, does that mean the boxers weren't exercising free will while they were fighting? Free will is compatible with destiny.
The boxers have no free will, they can't choose otherwise.
can you define free will? You can't because it's an incoherent concept
Having the ability to freely choose, that is how I would describe it.
What does it mean to freely choose? Is the claim "that individual has the ability to freely choose" falsifiable? How would you be able to distinguish between an individual who can freely choose and one who cannot?
I ultimately agree with you that it's impossible to define, I simply appeal to utility. I feel as though I can freely choose, therefore I believe it's true that I have the ability to freely choose.
>I don't know what choosing freely even is
>But I totally feel like I can choose freely
Do you not see how illogical that is?
Why should he? He wants us to confront it.
Then he's not supremly good, he's a little shit that creates flawed being and then enjoys watching them fail
All of the trials we go through are possible to overcome. No one is ever given an impossible test.
That is like asking if god can make a ball move up and down at the same time.
Yeah, they just say it's no problem because they have faith in Jesus
>if god is omnipotent then he must be supremely good and supremely evil
My eyes hurt.
Once I heard that the way Islamic theology solves the problem of evil is by simply biting the bullet and admitting that Allah is not all good, but that even if you don't like it and disagree with his actions, you still need to gain his favor if you want to get into heaven so you just have to do as he says.
Can anyone confirm or debunk this?
I don't know whether that's true or not but it's honestly one of the dumbest ways out of this dilemma. It makes more sense to say that (1) God is not omnipotent or (2) that Evil does not exist and that all the suffering that we see is necessary or part of a test or plan.
A God who is not omnipotent but still deserves worship can be explained in many ways. There can be a Demiurg or Devil who allows or creates evil in the world, which God is unable to eliminate. Maybe he even needs sacrifices or worship to gain strength.
I like to think of it this way. God is not omnipotent, he spent an enormous amount of force to create the earth, that's why the 7th day of rest was needed. Maybe we are still in that day. All creation is subject to vanity: entropy ensures all things must eventually decay, God is the binding force that keeps things together for the time being.
In my mind, blaming God for evil is the same as blaming the sun for darkness. Atheism is then like inventing electric lights and deciding the sun is no longer necessary.
There is an answer, that if you bothered to look up, would have founded it. Summed up, there is no evil, no antithesis or duality of two different powers, one good and the other evil, the lack of God that is in a way “evil”. Where there is God, good resides, when we reject God and His teachings, we lack goodness, and such live with “evil” and suffer with such.
this is the only right answer in the thread. going to hell isn't a punishment by God, it's just that He accepts your decision to not follow Him and sends you to a Godless place.
This would imply that God created us with the capacity to reject Him, or in other words, the capacity for evil. And then this just wraps back around to the question of why would God create us with the capacity for evil?
Yes and it's fricking stupid.
They just say that "good" is defined as "whatever God deems good", since God created everything, therefore the concept of bad and good as well.
So 5-year-olds getting aggressive cancer and dying in agony before their 6th birthday is good, actually, because God deemed it so.
The "problem of evil" is just an expression of narcissism. I'm not even religious, but it's pretty obvious that any universe in which an all-powerful god exists, the suffering of any man or men is totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
You can see it here:
because god is a schemer. Of course.
characterizing it like that is just more narcissism. You and your pain don't really matter all that much whether god exists or not.
Demanding eternal worship is also narcissism.
Yeah, but n omnipotent being can at lease come up with real reasons for why they matter.
The worship of God is not like the worship of the pagan gods. When humans worshipped pagans gods like zeus, they did so to garner they favor and avoid they wrath, by stroking they egos they hoped to remain in the pagan gods good graces. The worship of God however, as another finality, when we worship God, and follow the teachings of Jesus, we do so not to boast God, as He does not need such thing, we do so to follow him and His teachings, accepting the path His son has show to us. Like a father we idolize, we worship God as a way of showing our acceptance of His will and love, is thus, not a form of narcissism.
What an obnoxious display of self-fellatio.
Excepting a small minority that happen to worship for those reasons, reasons which also most certainly existed within paganism, the vast majority of christcucks prostate themselves before the judeo-christian god in the hopes that that god will sway future events in their lives to their favour, like the pagan gods. Furthermore, they do so under the idea that, as a result of their faith, the judeo-christian god will reward them with eternal pleasures in the afterlife. This is why conversion and religiosity is more common among the poor compared to the wealthy, and among the third world compared to the first. If it weren't for the promise of paradise, and to a greater extent the threat of damnation, not so many people would be as accepting of god's so-called 'will and love'.
>The worship of God is not like the worship of the pagan gods. When humans worshipped pagans gods like zeus, they did so to garner they favor and avoid they wrath, by stroking they egos they hoped to remain in the pagan gods good graces.
You are ignoring the scripture. Embrace the Bible
And thou shalt receive them of their hands, and burn them upon the altar for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour before the LORD: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
- Exodus 20:25
>You are ignoring the scripture. Embrace the Bible
The scripture is pretty clear about what it think about the old testament.
Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
Ezekiel 3:3
The old testament as pagan influences in it, its Hebrew in nature, different from the new testament, also, lets not forget that the Hebrews had at one time worshiped many gods before whorshipping just one.
The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. Exodus 34:19
Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Exodus 34:20
It's referring to giving the firstborns to be priests at the tabernacle. Here's what God thinks of human sacrifices and offering human sacrificies to Him:
Deuteronomy 18:10 ESV
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer
Leviticus 18:21 ESV
You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
2 Kings 21:6 ESV
And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
Deuteronomy 12:31 ESV
You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
>It's referring to giving the firstborns to be priests at the tabernacle
I thought it was referring to giving every firstborn ANIMAL to the Lord. Your quotes only mention worship of sons to either the Lord or other gods. What about the sacrifices of slaves or captives. I know Moses did it and I think there is even a rule mentioning it.
>The worship of God is not like the worship of the pagan gods.
YHWH enjoys the smell of burnt flesh.
good answer.
There is an incorrect assumption that God is demanding worship.
If God was demanding something, it would be happening. He created all this, can sweep it away in a blink, so nothing he is demanding is not happening. That’s just the way that is, so we start there.
Then we can observe that lots and lots of people dont worship Him at all. Some call Him names like ‘narcissistic’, and worse. So non worship is very much allowed.
In fact, it is so much allowed that those who choose it will be granted it eternally. What is now allowed will become the defining condition of reality. A person has to look around and assess what that might be like.
>the government isn't demanding taxes from you. You are free to not pay your taxes if you want to. you're just choosing to go to jail instead.
I reject that comparison. The law that tells you to pay taxes is not optional. God is giving you the option to choose if you want to worship him or not
The government forces you to go to jail if you don't pay your taxes. Likewise, the judeo-christian god forces you to go to hell if you don't pay your tithes.
>forces you
do I force you to marry me if you don't like me? it would not be very loving of me to force you to be with me forever if you dont want to be. God is not forcing us to do anything
The government forces you to go to jail if you don't "choose" to pay your taxes. Likewise, the judeo-christian god forces you to go to hell if you don't "choose" to pay your tithes.
spamming the same message will not change the truth. like I said, He is not forcing you to worship Him. if you choose not to, then he accepts that
It's not a choice. It's coercion.
i can't change the way you interpret something
That's just your interpretation, man.
It's funny how judeo-christians become the biggest subjectivists in these "debates".
you're thinking emotionally, not logically. i say again, God is giving you the free will to choose if you want to be with him eternally or not. do you think of every choice presented to you as coercion? no, because this is a genuine offer to you. if you had no choice, then you would be worshiping God right now
Is the government coercing you into paying your taxes by threatening you with jail time some other punitive course of action, or do you have a choice in paying your taxes or not?
i said before, the government does not give you a choice because it is a clearly defined law that you MUST pay your taxes. you are not given a choice
Except the government does not physically force you to pay your taxes, therefore you have an uncoerced choice.
They do, there are just a few additional steps before the force is applied. If you don't cooperate with the state you will eventually end up in a situation where you are summoned to court or arrested and if you don't come willingly then their agents will exert physical force against you.
If you don't worship god, you will eventually end up in a situation where you are forced to suffer eternal damnation by god's agents. Think logically about this, not emotionally.
going straight to hell is not the same as being forced into captivity
You're right, it's far worse. However, it's the same general principle. You must worship/pay taxes to judeo-christian god/government, otherwise you will be forcibly sent to hell/prison. Think logically about this, not emotionally.
>muh pascal's wager
God revealed to me in a dream that he wants you to crush your balls in a vice, if you don't do this you will suffer eternal damnation. If he doesn't exist at all then you will just have crushed your balls in this temporary life, it's such a good deal you are logically obliged to accept
>you're thinking emotionally, not logically.
Ironic. Judeo-christianity is entirely emotional.
>God is giving you the free will to choose if you want to be with him eternally or not
"Follow me or burn in hell for eternity" isn't much of a choice.
why not? you chose not to follow Him and be with Him for eternity. you chose to be AWAY from Him and all that is good, which happens to be what hell is. a place without God. you didnt want to follow Him, so why should you go to be with Him in heaven? it's ridiculous
>why not?
Are you even human? How do you ask such an idiotic question?
>I have a gun to your head, locked and loaded, and I want you to suck my dick, but you totally have the choice not to!
>btw I created you and this situation and I'm not responsible for you getting your brains blown out of your skull in any way
Shut the frick up, moron.
>Shut the frick up, moron.
stop letting your emotions to get you. your analogies are not applicable at all to this conversation. i say again: i love you so much that i want you to be with me forever, but you say no. okay, i love you so much that i will accept that choice and have zero influence in your life anymore. hell is a place without God, which is where people go when then do not want to be with God. it is not a threat, it is a consequence to your decision.
>Jailtime is just a consequence of your decision not to pay taxes.
yes
So then you have no problem with authoritarian governments, since you can always simply choose to do something other than what they command you to do.
My emotions are me, homosexual. They don't "get to me." Embracing myself means embracing them.
>hell is a place without God
There is no place without an omnipresent being. It doesn't make any fricking sense.
Your Stockholm syndrome is so severe that you honestly think the one with the gun to your head has given you an "opportunity" to do good (read: suck his dick).
>There is no place without an omnipresent being. It doesn't make any fricking sense.
God is not influencing hell, because doing so would mean that He is forcing the people in hell to be influenced by Him. if they chose to not be with Him, then why should He be influencing the place that they are in. hell has no good, and God is good.
Nice job not addressing the point at all.
what do you not get about it? He can know what's happening in hell, but that does not mean that He has any part in it.
t. does not understand basic logic in the slightest
Yes. But god is not forcing you to do anything. Just because one choice is obviously better than the other it's not coercion.
>I'm not forcing to suck my dick. Just because sucking my dick is obviously better than death it's not coercion.
your analogy has two bad outcomes, while choosing between God and Satan has only one good outcome. like i said, your analogies are not applicable here
Sucking god's ass for all eternity is a bad outcome? I thought that was the goal in Heaven tbh.
>no longer giving genuine replies
i see. i accept your concession.
I'm serious, though. Have you read Psalms? It's infinite YHWH worship in any way imaginable.
It's analogous. You either gimp your life for a religion that may or may not even be true, or be forced into eternal damnation. That's zero good outcomes.
>You either gimp your life for a religion that may or may not even be true, or be forced into eternal damnation.
well you choose to believe it to be that way. a Christian believes that he is living a temporary life in which they accept Jesus Christ as their savior to then live eternally in paradise
>It's just like, your beliefs, man
Once again, judeo-christians reveal themselves to be mega subjectivists.
you are the one that came up with those two options. we are talking about the choice of whether you want to serve God, not about whether you want to "gimp your life". how exactly is your life being gimped by serving God?
You adopt slave morality and can only beg an imaginary bearded man in the sky to solve all your problems for you like a snivelling judeo-christian wreck.
>going off topic
again i say to you, emotions do not change the reality of logic, don't let yourself be enslaved to it. you have the choice to choose the right or wrong path. why then, do you think that it is God's fault that you decided to choose the wrong path?
>emotions do not change the reality of logic
Yes, which is why the judeo-christian god does not exist, and neither does free will, which is what you are alluding to.
clearly free will exists if you are choosing to reject Him right now
>that's because he doesnt exist!
i guess that's one way to completely avoid the argument. i accept your concession
>clearly free will exists if you are choosing to reject Him right now
Or, you know, pre-existing causes has led to me rejecting the idea of a judeo-christian bearded man in the sky that yells at fig trees and mauls children with bears. Think logically about this.
>I-I accept your concession
Desperate. How many people have you successfully converted by being a total homosexual? Perhaps you would have more success in other boards, such as >>>/x/
>Or, you know, pre-existing causes has led to me rejecting the idea of a judeo-christian bearded man in the sky that yells at fig trees and mauls children with bears. Think logically about this.
So, does that mean that you could choose to believe in God right here and now if you wanted, or not?
>if you wanted
Your own wants and desires are predetermined by pre-existing causes. Your brain is not something that's excluded from the laws of cause and effect. Think logically about this.
>Determinism
Into the trash you go.
You're thinking emotionally again. Think logically. I'm going to challenge you to not respond to this post if you have free will. Does the absence of your response prove that you indeed have free will, or isn't it actually the case that your desire to prove you have free will has, ironically, determined that you will not respond?
>You're thinking emotionally again.
>Emotions are......LE BAD
>Think logically.
I am.
> I'm going to challenge you to-
I reject your challenge. You don't tell me what to do.
You need to go to >>>/x/. They are more receptive to the idea of worshiping bearded men in the sky who threaten to smear feces on other people's faces. They are emotional thinkers.
>You need to go to-
You don't tell me what to do, b***h.
That privilege is apparently reserved for israeli rabbis, lol.
moron
No dude your shitty god isn't forcing anyone. He gives the choice to say no, but if you even DARE to think about it you go straight to HELL. There's no coercion, btw HELL is forever, and ever. I love you but yeah, if you ignore me then you're fricked.
Imagine you are going on a road trip and you have to paths to follow on a particular stretch of road. One is the shittiest dirt road path through shit creek and the backwoods. While the other one is an actually paved road/highway yoi have to pay to pass.
Are you being coerced to pay for being able to use the good road or are you just taking the sensible option.
>let humans rape each other in the garden and become demon animal beast creatures with immortality forever
No, I think God was right to boot the man out to prevent that from happening.
Jesus is merely the agreed upon way sent from God to get back to it. Once there is 2 men on earth there is automatically a surrender of your rights to an authority (beyond the natural laws of breathing and eating and shitting in God’s Garden). This authority has laws and prison systems for punishment and courts and God created it Himself. Once the government can actually resurrect the dead theirselves with a push of a button with Jesus at its head, there has to be an authority and a process for deciding who gets to come out of hell because those people will be living inside of the virtual machine but not allowed to come out unless they had this authority to do so. Some people may even be required to be resurrected just to talk to them before sending them back which is described in the 2nd resurrection (which says woe unto them for they are cursed, all of them).
another good answer. thanks Oyish.
Christians are not part of this world of evil.
https://banned.video/watch?id=629222e02428792b0ec1f8d1
Egypt was glorious because Pharoah used fruit trees and herbs to heal his nation. He was regarded as blessed, meaning holy, as long as he welcomed God’s People (Christians) within it.
The Bible is entirely about leaving the garden of God, because of becoming fallen. There is constant exodus. Just because exodus is one of the books doesn’t mean there aren’t more of that going on. Satan corrupts and man leaves and finds happiness with God away from Satan, demons, and the corruption. Like Adam lived to a very, very long life to see the fruits of his flesh. Both good and evil.
The good were spared and some allowed to die of old age. Some ‘good’ men were even allowed grievous sins and allowed to go to enter into heaven. Like King David and all those men who fought wars with ancient Israel’s enemies.
If there was no evil there would be no Jesus to heal the sick of their infirmaties, devils, and to teach the satanic Pharisees how to find peace surrounded by evil.
Killing evil people cannot bring forth righteousness, but communication might. If our enemies can be communicated our feelings then they might be saved. Big Tech doesn’t want that to happen, they consider that worse because they were enjoying love love love Christianity with the Old Testament cut off and that is why everything became gay. Once we reminded them that the New Testament requires the Old Testament like a videogame has an expansion pack and it doesn’t work without it (WarCraft III - Reign of Chaos full game + Frozen Throne) that killed their apostasy in the end times from having any legitimacy.
Windows OS is notorious for corruption. Can’t even use it without needing a Doctor Program to clean up broken Registries, spyware, viruses, etc.
Trees produce very strong molecules that go into invading microorganisms that would eat them and protect from the sun.
All god's plan, bro
>the problem of evil
A Christian sentiment.
Have Christians ever addressed the necessity of evil in God?
There is no problem of Evil
The world is as God intended, there is no greater good than living through the life he planned us to live. We die if he wants us to die and kill when he wants us to kill.
The good life is a boring life. There is no beauty and pleasure without evil.
The whole premise is wrong, and literally so from the first line:
>If God is supremely good, then he has the desire to eliminate evil
Wrong. Evil is necessary as a form of punishment for God to be good: to be good, he needs to be fair, and that includes chastisement, to ensure justice, in the form of evil:
>forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil. I, יהוה, do all these.’
Yeshayahu 45:7 TS2009
God is the exact opposite of fair though
Some people are born in a [insert name of the actual true religion among dozens] family while other are not
Some people are born rich while some are not
Some people are born mentally ill and violent while some are not
How does Plato address this problem?
He basically affirms that god, known as the demiurge, is not omnipotent, and that the material world is the demiurge's attempt at recreating the forms.
Okay I see, but The One would be omnipotent though?
My grandpa ended his own life after breaking his spine (all he did was reach up into the car with his arm, it had degraded in quality so much by 90), having surgery to fix it, but then couldn’t sleep for an entire week and in the middle of the night had so much mental anguish (we think) that he wrote a suicide note and shot himself. I renounce his decision to do this and I believe he should have submitted himself to God for the answer instead of making that decision himself. However, he is in a better place now and he was a saved Christian and he remained a Christian who stuck with other Christians including family.
The answer to such a horrorific state of being is God’s Miracles of tree fruit and herbs by faith in Jesus Christ God’s Son. As a last resort, people can turn to doctors and take something prescribed to do the same thing, but drugs usually have side effects and aren’t meant to be the primary means of living.
>However, he is in a better place now
Suicide is a sin bro, he's condemned to eternal damnation
You aren’t a Christian and it interesting when a Black person claims himself to be and makes false judgments.
I think God allowed it to happen to make it possible to weed out the tears like you which will never be converted.
Here are the verses which describe the body of Christ which defeats all sin through bodily connection spiritually and divinely.
1 Corinthians 12:12 King James Version 12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
1 Corinthians 7:12-16 - But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. (Read More...)
1 Corinthians 15:33 - Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
1 Corinthians 7:14 - For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
This can be easily summed up by saying modern Christians today, especially prots, focus on the new testament and the life of Jesus of Nazareth, while ignoring the old testament.
The God from the old testament is a wrathful one. He's prideful, jealous, prone to anger and wrath, and is quick to do so. The simple (and the puritan) answer is God acts the way he does because he wants to, we are at his mercy. He had rules that contradict themselves and that are at times unfair to almost impossible, yet we must do our best because if not, God will cast us to hell. These philosophical exercises like God's immoveable rock among others are laughable at best.
A good example of this is in Exodus, when Moses keeps telling God, appearing as the burning bush: 'No, you have the wrong guy, choose someone else to be your prophet'
>Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
>The LORD said to him, “WHO MADE MAN'S MOUTH? WHO MAKES THE DEAF, THE MUTE, THE SEEING OR THE BLIND? IS IT NOT I!?"
>"NOW GO! I WILL TEACH YOU WHAT TO SAY."
In other words, questioning the almighty is useless, he'll just get angry and claim that he knows better.
>In other words, questioning the almighty is useless, he'll just get angry and claim that he knows better.
God has free will as well. ask Jonah.
>If God doesn't fit into my definition of what I say then he doesn't exist!
>God is all powerful, that means nothing I say has to make sense!
it made perfect sense to me. maybe your wickedness is keeping your ears shut
>who created the universe then? checkmate atheists
>NOOOOO GOD DOESN'T NEED A CREATOR BECAUSE HE'S GOD!!!!!!!!!!
We know for a fact that the universe began to exist at some point, that fact alone necessitates a causal force. That's the difference. One is a fact, the other is an unsustained claim.
Go read the source instead of trusting your apologists. They're lying to you, it's their job.
>We know for a fact that the universe began to exist at some point
No we don't. We only know that there was perhaps an origin point to the particular arrangement of the universe we are aware of and alive in. We don't know anything about what there was prior to that origin point. And does it even make sense to posit that there was nothing? Not a single phenomenon we witness works like that.
>No we don't.
Yes we do. Look up the Big Bang theory.
>We only know that there was perhaps an origin point to the particular arrangement of the universe we are aware of and alive in.
I.e. a beginning. Glad we agree.
>We don't know anything about what there was prior to that origin point.
We know that at some point the universe as we know it wasn't, but at some point, it came to be.
>And does it even make sense to posit that there was nothing?
No, there was God.
>Not a single phenomenon we witness works like that.
Indeed brother, you're on the right track. Accept God.
frick off catgay
Big Bang theory does not necessitate that there was nothing prior to it and it's often paired with Big Crunch theory — the idea that the universe is actually in a series of crunches and bangs chained together, perhaps endlessly. In such a model, there's no need for an outside creator at all, because there is no outside.
>Big Bang theory does not necessitate that there was nothing prior to it
No one has ever said that there was absolutely nothing before the Big Bang. There was God.
>and it's often paired with Big Crunch theory — the idea that the universe is actually in a series of crunches and bangs chained together, perhaps endlessly. In such a model, there's no need for an outside creator at all, because there is no outside.
And what evidence to we have for the Big Crunch theory?
>And what evidence to we have for the Big Crunch theory?
Same evidence we have for Big Bang theory. It's all speculation. All I know is that you are a hypocrite or incapable of grasping basic logic for asserting that the universe requires a creator while God doesn't.
>Same evidence we have for Big Bang theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_theory
>The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution.
>All I know is that you are a hypocrite or incapable of grasping basic logic for asserting that the universe requires a creator while God doesn't.
1. We know that the universe began to exist at some point.
2. We don't know if God ever began to exist at some point. But we do know that He must have existed before the Big Bang and before the universe, so His existence is not dependent on the existence of the universe.
Do you catch the difference?
Prevailing model doesn't mean it isn't speculation.
>We know that the universe began to exist at some point.
See
See:
>Prevailing model doesn't mean it isn't speculation.
If you want to go against the scientific consensus that's your problem. I'll say with what scientists say.
You are also going against the scientific consensus by accepting Big Bang theory while outright denying Big Crunch theory. Fact is, we don't know for certain.
>You are also going against the scientific consensus by accepting Big Bang theory while outright denying Big Crunch theory
The Big Crunch is not part of the scientific consensus, anon. THAT part is indeed speculation. The Big Bang is a well-established theory, to the point that people that disagree with it are now the odd ones out.
Doesn't matter how much make you seethe, I don't have to accept the Big Crunch in order to also accept the Big Bang, the latter can be real without the former.
Your appeals to popularity are unscientific. Some scientists, like James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, still contended that a true "beginning" to the universe is nonsense, and given that nothing we witness has a true beginning either, I'm inclined to think those scientists are on to something that no one else is picking up on.
>I'm inclined to think those scientists are on to something that no one else is picking up on.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.......
You're starting to sound like a YEC, anon.
Nothing truly begins or ends. Energy merely transforms. Your God is the hocus pocus bullshit here.
If I shot you in the face and kill you, does your life end?
No. My body's energy takes a new shape, and the illusion we call consciousness with it.
>No.
So nobody's life ever ends but our lives do begin.
And this makes sense to you.
I didn't say our lives begin.
Does your consciousness begins or ends at some point in time?
Consciousness emerges from energy. So no, it doesn't begin or end, but it does change along with energy.
>Consciousness emerges from energy.
Does consciousness emerge at a certain point in time?
Energy has no creation event, so no.
>Energy
I never said anything about energy, I said consciousness. Answer please.
Consciousness emerges from energy, so whatever energy does, consciousness follows.
>Consciousness emerges
When?
When energy moves, so always.
>When energy moves
So when energy moves in a certain way consciousness emerge. So it does have a beginning.
Not "in a certain way." When energy moves, period.
>We know that the universe began to exist at some point.
Not really, it could have existed forever. Or some unconscious universal seed could have caused it rather than God.
To elaborate, 'the First Cause' could have been the same as the Christian one just not conscious, and so not God.
>Same evidence we have for Big Bang theory. It's all speculation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence
>>NOOOOO GOD DOESN'T NEED A CREATOR BECAUSE HE'S GOD!!!!!!!!!!
well... yes? it's God. He has the ability to exist eternally before creating us
>He's God, I ain't gotta explain shit
try getting a 2d character to explain the 3rd dimension. you cannot comprehend the idea of God existing for eternity, that's fine. we are humans
I can comprehend the universe existing for eternity just fine. I can't comprehend the brain that can't comprehend this yet still asserts that God exists for eternity, except as one that is deliberately attempting to bullshit me.
Ok then why can't an unconscious 'First Cause' have been existing forever.
Whatever was that cause the Big Bang must have been outside of time since time began to exist at the Big Bang. God would be one of those things.
>must be
lol
That doesn't proof the cause was conscious, had a will, etc.
*prove
True, but it doesn't rule it out either. If you're honest, you have to acknowledge that God is a legitimate candidate, there is nothing that we know currently about the beginning of the universe that would rule out God. Atheism is inherently a dishonest position, agnosticism is more sensible. And theism is not an stretch either, is perfectly reasonable.
Have you even converted, or just convinced someone with this line of reasoning?
I've definitely gotten some atheists to be like:
>Damn, I've never thought of that before.
With a lost look on their face.
And then einstein clapped.
Don't believe me, I don't need you to.
Then what happened? Did both of you continue the conversation, or moved to something else?
Why do Christians insist he has attributes that, if he exists, he clearly doesn't? It's perfectly coherent to suppose that he exists but isn't as powerful as he's cracked up to be, for example, but they never consider that.
You can't even choose to believe in something. Doing that would be mere hypocrisy. Also if you are born in a Christian family you are much more likely to be Christian than otherwise. How is that fair? And what about people who died before Jesus was born? Do they go straight to hell? According to the bible they would if I interpret it correctly. So, again, how is that fair?
Do you seriously think Christians are aware of the nature of belief? They can't even decide if their god's characteristics override free will, or it's the opposite.
Evil is meant to make you angry and question the judgment of God. You are meant to be righteous and good, evil is meant to disgust you, agitate you and even make you feel pity. Seeing evil is intended to keep you on the path.
Loving how confronting any modern, insecure Christian immediately pushes them to their last resort: gaps of knowledge they have about the nature of reality.
So much for worshiping a placeholder deity.
Wasted
It's a fact. Btw is not the first time I get one by dabbing on "Christians" that don't understand what the Big Bang even is:
Based Quints of truth.
>Implying
Talk about the atheist autists who keep making thread after thread talking about the same shit about christianity over and over trying to bait people into responding to they fallacies.
>plural
It's a single guy who spams the "debate me" threads
>fallacies
ayy
>Spam thinly-veiled christcuck apologetics on history and humanities board.
>anons counter spam with atheist threads
Really?
What about the problem of good?
The person claiming something exists needs to prove it exists.
My lack of belief in gods, unicorns, fairies, goblins and dragons is based on a lack of proof for these things.
If the people who believe in these things can prove they exist, I will change my mind.
Without that rule, you have to concede that goblins exist or pretend you’re unsure
You say this as if we were at a stalemate where stuff has never been proven ever.
The guy who lacks the belief in a sacred exploding reverse dinosaur that grants immortality doesn't need to elaborate further on the demonstrable, self evident lack of explosive reverse dinosaur stopping the cycle of life around the world. Unlike the guys telling you that they're already immortal because they have prayed to the mysterious reptile
Here is the spiritual equivalent of a phone agenda, go pester some spirits with your questions. See if they manifest in any ways, be open to it and to informations you may receive.
This? You could've done this a billion years ago, instead you troll an entire board.
Self suggestion and personal experiences are not evidence, Anon. At best they're not hearsay.
Ah, so you're a denier rather than an inquisitive mind. I despise those.
I'm not denying that you may have a mystical experience in the past, and that it convinced you of something.
I'm just telling you that your personal testimony about it does not consist evidence, because it doesn't affect the real world outside of your head.
>because it doesn't affect the real world outside of your head.
I wish that was the case. Unfortunately, these mystical experiences affect the real world by inflicting these schizos upon our imageboard.
Calvin.
>God is awe-some, and it is proper to fear god and to love god.
>God does bad things to people sometimes or it appears that way.
Some christians think god has to be sunshine and rainbows all day every day. So they find this to be a problem that bad things happen.
1. You either believe in god or you don’t.
2. You either believe that god is all powerful or you don’t
3. If there is an all powerful god then this god is worthy of worship
4. If this god exists, is all powerful, and is worthy of worship then your views about god’s actions being nice or bad are irrelevant
How do you put two spaces in your post wtf
its a janny
So in other words Might=Right? I guess Christianity is a form of Nietzschism then.
This is a history board so let’s introduce some history.
This is a theism, and monotheism thing.
However Christians in late Roman Empire tried to make themselves into a rapidly spreading feel good club. Maybe “evil” is a problem there but even they have a redemption arc and it makes sort of sense. They also like emotional agony in the traditional forms. Ever watch a contemplative Italian film with a shot of some crying Mary statue? Yes it’s in every movie.
Original quote in OP has a problem.
“Supremely good”.
Good is a relative term. Something can be good for you and bad for me. If something is good for everyone it might not appear as particularly good to anyone. It’s good that we’re all alive but most people don’t regard life itself to be some immense good. They squabble about little goods and bads.
The original quote is also an Epicurean argument iirc attributed to Lucretius or one of the other Epicureans.
Nietzsche was a vehement critic of cuckstianity, for your information. You should at least skim through wikipedia. At least once.
Yes but he regarded Christianity and all religion as a will to power so this user is
correct with respect to Nietzsche
For Nietzsche, any and all action was a will to power, not religion exclusive. On the other hand, He indicted cuckstianity of slave morality and herd mentality, so this user
, and you, who jumped in defence of this user, were incorrect after all.
Nietzsche was genuinely impressed with the will to power it took to birth Christianity. This is not inconsistent with his denunciations of that religion or what appears to be denunciations. He regarded it as a triumph of will for the priests of seethe to transform their seethe into an that spread and defeated its opponents.
My point was that was that Christians wouldn't want to be associated with Nietzsche but their resolution of the problem of evil is basically 'Might makes Right' writ large which sounds rather Nietzschean.
If you genuinely believe in all powerful god then it should be the least of your concerns whether that god is all good or not.
The argument in OP claims that god can’t be all good if there is evil in the world. That’s “true” in that things happen that appear to be evil or bad. However it also doesn’t follow that just because there is evil in the world that god isn’t supremely good… maybe god puts just the right amount of evil in to make things happen and work. This is the “life is a trial” argument and Islam says this too.
But Christians keep calling their God just and good. If his justice and goodness is merely vacuously derived from his power and will, isn't that mere hypocrisy? In other words they are just heaping empty praise on God not to get punished / to get rewarded.
Also, the notion of hell is on another level than minor everyday evils of "life is a trial". A god that force you to do arbitrary things like believing in Jesus and then threaten you with hell if you don`t would be tyrannical.
I get that following his rules anyway would be the "smart" thing to do if you believe he does exist. But still a God whose entire claim to righteousness is is mere arbitrary power doesn't sound very legitimate.
>doesn’t sound very legitimate
My point is that if you believe god exists and is all powerful, it’s not like some politician you get to vote for. Who cares whether you think it’s legitimate or not. Cope.
Read the whole post, christcuck..
I got your point and I don't believe in your israeli fairy tales so whatever.
>needing a israeli rabbi to tell you tell you what's right and wrong
disgusting slavelike mentality
Note that Judaism and Islam don’t have this problem either. They reflect the argument I presented above.
Nietzsche regarded religion as an intense will to power by decadent priest types who transformed their seething into a work of art and went beyond themselves to cope with their weakness in life, the predatory nature we live in, and how precarious everything really is.
They concentrated all of their seething and then self annihilated themselves in going beyond their own peculiar circumstances. A process of mental abstraction with a concentrated emotional intensity. This produced the feeling of “god” and religion, and the “thou shalt”. According to Nietzsche.
I did
https://pastebin.com/mv79AiFx
Why do christoids always post links? No, I'm not downloading your virus. Copy and paste the relevant text or frick off.
Fine
Gaytheist.
In the grand scheme of things, there is one conscious Being, that is the creator of all living things on earth and the universe at large, in the sense of plants, animals, and humans. Descending from the creator, which has no beginning or end or middle, which exists beyond time and space, each monad, divides itself into a series of opposing forces, the most fundamental being negative and positive energy, which situates itself into ever increasing sizes which make up the objects of our given universe. There is an opposite for everything, light versus darkness, woman versus man, large versus small, earth versus water, etc etc. that make up the universe in which we partake. like Augustine said, evil is the absence of good, as water is the absence of land, woman is the negation of man, darkness is the negation of light, all of these justify the supporting position on the problem of evil. God cannot exist without Satan and vice versa. What we perceive of the universe, however, is illusory, objects are simply collections of energy that our mind(s), by sheer will, see as actually "existant" things, our body is an extension of our minds in that reacts to sensory knowledge, an "apple" is only an "apple" because our mind organizes the shape, color, and since its food, the taste and scent of it as an "apple". Outside of our own experience, however, its nothing more than energy, and nothing else, its only our mind causing the sensation of something existing because of the consciousness provided by the first mover, God, which is the first part of the trinity which produces the word (logos) and the spirit (consciousness), the latter of which exists in all living beings.
(Cont)
However, when speaking of the trinity, there are three persons, God is the creator, which Jesus is the word (logos) which speaks to the holy ghost, consciousness, as it will be, placed in every living creature, plant, animal or human, which in order to commute with the logos (Jesus, the word), every living thing must seek him out which eventually bridges the gap between mortal man, animal and plant, to God (the creator). Now there are different anamolies in the modern world we must look at that explain the existence of evil on earth, such as the existence of transgenders, who exist between different planes of Being, a sort of "sub-being" that exist between dual natures. There is also the existence of ghosts, which is explained by a conscious world that exists when none else exists to observe it, if the body (human, animal, plant) is not there, something must exist to keep the world-spirit alive, which is the observance of God, upon his creation. Thats why even in climates hostile to life (deserts, snow-tundras) still exist in some form if its two cold or hot for life to observe its existence, which is a convincing argument for God making sure its in the sense of Being and not "non-being" (with a lowercase b).
(Cont)
Now as far as transgenders go, they exist in a state of between beings, which essentially, even in asexual or transsexual animal life, is where limbo resides, where all lost souls go to dwell, this essentially is purgatory, and purgatory is the domain of lost souls, which explains why they never will "Be", and why often those in transistion, be it coral reefs or weird sea creatures, or human transgenders are viewed as something that affects the uncanny valley effects of such abominations like cyborgs with half human faces. These are examples of not evil, but rather things that should not be, but take up parts of our environment to help us realize that there is a large gulf between our existence (the nominal, binary existence) and the domain of things that exist in our subconscious where Satan tries to blend into the nominal world and produces fear and anxiety for those that exist in a perfectly ordered universe, as God intended.
This is just trying to obfuscate the problem of evil by redefining terms, isn't it.
Keep reading
(cont)
The best way for all nominal creatures to avoid these anxieties is to make the leap towards logos as a pathway towards the creator and eventually avoid the pitfalls of ending up in purgatory or, if we fail to do so and engage willingly in this behavior, will end up in hell. Hell, as far as I feel, is a place where sensory inputs are turned off yet one is still conscious. And nothing can quite come close to describing the utter sense of helplessness after death, And no one, of good faith and fortune, truly wants that. But to experiment with changing idenity, as in the case of gender or going as far as self-mutilation, to offend the temple of the body in a way that destroys whats been created and making something that should not BE out of one's self quickens the pathway towards annihilation, Gehenna, where all lost souls, if they continue to press God's will, will be destroyed in the end days.
I can't be bothered to take you seriously if you define terms like "good" in such a way nobody uses it outside this specific explanation, just so you can avoid dealing with the problem of evil because your theology is all folded into itself and makes no sense under scrutiny.
Ok sciencetard
Obsessed
With your mama, sure
Damn, you've been bullied so much. Maybe it's time to let it go, bro.
Not since 20 years ago. Typical zoomer.
Read all of these in order
What is really gay is pre-writing an entire spiel and forcing it into every discussion rather than actually participating in a discussion organically.
This was the power of weak men who could not strive in this world for success and therefore birthed a new world beyond themselves where everything was promised and given freely. They anointed themselves the guardians of this world and set upon the masses to preach it. Their common condition of weakness being everywhere a persistent fact and so winning many converts. Especially among the disaffected. These people encountered actual life affirming people of strength and health and set upon vilifying them, destroying them, and converting the survivors. They won by the perfidy of their arguments and cleverness of their methods. Where the healthy and strong spoke frankly the sick and seething spoke in riddles and entrapped their opponents.
The problem with appealing to some sort of tautology apparent to our universe (examples: you need pain to experience joy, free will can't exist without evil, good can't exist without evil, humans can't learn unless there is evil etc etc) in order to justify the omnipotent and benevolent god and the existence of evil is that god is the one who invented these rules. He could just have easily created a universe where evil isn't required as he could create one where it is.
If we look at evil and good from first principles… we get the following.
— Good is good for me
— Evil is bad for me.
Right? What other definition is there?
Or shall we say: sick children is evil/bad.
But what if these sick children led to a social concern about the illness which produced a cure by scientists and this saves millions more?
(Incipit utilitarianism)
God can’t just give everything to people. It used to be that way in the garden but since humans aren’t there anymore, things happen via stimulation/trial/cause/effect.
If something is good for me then is it bad for for someone else?
Otherwise known as a zero sum game. This happens all the time. God help my business grow. Ok but what about your competitors? Shall god forsake them? Or if you all grow, shall god grant one of them the prayer that his business dominates the others?
On what account?
Maybe god grants this to the smartest bestest most cleverest who deserves it. Or god has decided that one is that smart or clever from the get go (Calvin?) ?
If the expectation is that each individual must have only good things happen to them, then this seems impossible because so many things are in privation and competition. If one individual wins the race and it’s good that he gets the gold price, what about the second place runner up? Or the third place?
So people try to get themselves to be favored by god. They can do this by living pious lives and doing good. There is the book of job in which a good man is tested.
There are also people who appear to live pious lives and do so in expectation of a reward? Does it matter? What if you really want the outcomes of god favoring you versus actually being a pious person? Is there a difference and will god care? Will god care about what you really want in your “heart” deepest desire, which you may not even verbalize or consciously contemplate? Or will god favor someone who dutifully performs the rituals he demands regardless?
Or do the rituals actually being someone closer to god and wanting the right things? And this person will find good in life?
of course. It is simply rejected offhand by unbelievers as being "too hard and arbitrary to be true". Thus, they reject the clear testimony of Scripture that God created all things to manifest His glory and that those who fail to keep His law and obey His gospel will continue to suffer the just consequences of their sins; both in the form of natural evil and personal evil.
>dodges the problem of evil by not understanding it
What is evil? Someone murdering random people is evil, an earthquake hitting a town is not evil.
You can very easily substitute evil with suffering and the argument still stands.
It’s not like god got elected by the people and has to give speeches to appease the people’s expectations.
Unless you believe that god’s power increases proportionally to the number of people who worship him. There is absolutely no reason to seethe about various facts of life. Just obey.
God is not quite omnipotent. There, problem solved.
This is clearly the case from the Bible. I don't know why Christians insist he's omnipotent when their own scriptures indicate otherwise.
>Christian arguments rely on their own religion's heresies
LOL
Only god is good, man is not.
The ability to see everything is not the ability to change anything.
He certainly does.
Wrong. Man creates evil at the behest of satan.
Bingo.
Wrong. God sees you and is very disappointed.
answered it for you. geez that was easy.
let me explain before you freak out.
God is good. God is not evil.
God created man. Man gets subverted by satan.
Man creates evil.
If god wanted to eliminate evil, he would have to eliminate man. What good god would want to eliminate his own creation?
It's a nice exercise in circular logic, but your questioning lacks the one thing you need to understand god:
Truth.
have a nice day everyone.
The standard response is free will, which doesnt answer why the external world or full of evils or why people want to so evil in the first place
the only response that i've seen that solves this is plotinus's concept of the one and emanation
all of the christian explanations do nothing
false premise that there's something wrong with evil existing.
Based Calvinist
Yes. Many have. This debate has been going on for thousands of years.