But the problem with this argument is that there’s no reason to think that God and evil are logically incompatible.
He's conceding that his god isn't benevolent and the source of all goodness. I'm okay with that. Basically he invokes the argument that his god works in mysterious ways and we can't know anything -- except when we do. It basically boils down to "I believe it's true because I want it to be true." I have never found that terribly compelling, even when I was a Christian.
I don't understand how you took that out of that quote. He is simply setting up his argument that God can indeed exist in a world filled with evil. He is stating that saying, "Well innocent people are killed by other people = this is murder = murder is evil = evil exists = God is not evil = so God doesn't exist." is not an appropriate way to disprove the existence of God. Just because evil does exist doesn't mean God cannot. Maybe I'm not taking your argument far enough, but I'm having a hard time seeing that.
The Problem of Evil goes far, far deeper than the fact that people hurt other people. We can understand that, and even accept that it doesn't require any gods to happen. The fact that children are born with painful, debilitating disease through no fault of their own emphasizes the problem of evil. The fact that innocents are slaughtered by natural disasters is not something we can square with a benevolent god. To borrow from Tracie Harris:
You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, ‘When you’re done, I’m going to punish you.’If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That’s the difference between me and your God.
An omnimax god is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and all-good. Even when you disregard evil of human origin, there's far too much suffering inflicted on the innocent to support that claim. But note that the problem of evil doesn't disprove any gods, it simply disproves any benevolent gods.
I take issue with the fact that God should intervene with our own free will when it comes to evil. Let's take the child rapist analogy. So some depraved human being wishes to rape a child. It's a horrible atrocity so why doesn't God step in and stop it? Well, should he revoke that individuals free will? Should he take control of that person and expunge the though from his mind? If that's the case then we have no free will. At that point humanity is simply reduced to puppets. We can't take anything as our own thoughts then, because God has the power to over ride our will with His own. At that point God is a tyrant since he has removed our free will. In the SMBC comic you linked that shortens the "Benevolence" leg of the table. So should God strike down this child molester before he commits this atrocity? Maybe a bolt of lightning sizzles the rapist into a crispy splotch on the side walk? Well that doesn't make God any better. What good is free will if we are free to use it, even to disobey God, but are then destroyed before we can even ask for forgiveness? This also compromises his benevolence.
Now about natural disasters. If we assume God is good then we also assume that he does not cause natural disasters to occur, but that does mean he permits them to occur. How is a benevolent God permit such things to occur? Let's take it this way. Say that the only evil in the world was that which is committed against one another. Natural disasters cease to exist, sickness ceases to exist, starvation ceases to exist, and so on and so forth. The world is perfect in form and function. Well then what need do we have of God? I believe that one of the best things about the gospel is that humans are invited to participate within it. Things such as hunger would be eliminated if it were for the efforts of mankind. I mean look at all the good we do already with so much evil in the world. I feel like these horrible evils in the world occur so that mankind may surmount them and in serving our fellow man share in the divinity of God, in a small way.
I would like to thank you for indulging me and for having this discussion. I don't want this to devolve into an argument (although feel free to message me if you would like). I don't feel like that was the purpose of your post so I won't be responding again. You brought forth some very good points. I'll certainly be thinking about them and considering them for a while. I hope maybe you enjoyed what I said as well. Thank you for not being belligerent to someone who holds different beliefs than yourself. In the end I realize that we are all trying to understand suffering in the world, and we all find some way to do that be it through religion or looking inward to ourselves.
I take issue with the fact that God should intervene with our own free will when it comes to evil. Let's take the child rapist analogy. So some depraved human being wishes to rape a child. It's a horrible atrocity so why doesn't God step in and stop it? Well, should he revoke that individuals free will? Should he take control of that person and expunge the though from his mind? If that's the case then we have no free will. At that point humanity is simply reduced to puppets. We can't take anything as our own thoughts then, because God has the power to over ride our will with His own. At that point God is a tyrant since he has removed our free will. In the SMBC comic you linked that shortens the "Benevolence" leg of the table. So should God strike down this child molester before he commits this atrocity? Maybe a bolt of lightning sizzles the rapist into a crispy splotch on the side walk? Well that doesn't make God any better. What good is free will if we are free to use it, even to disobey God, but are then destroyed before we can even ask for forgiveness? This also compromises his benevolence.
What happens when we touch a hot stove? We burn ourselves, right? It's okay for us to learn from our mistakes, and the pain tells us we did something wrong. Sooner or later we figure out what it was that was wrong and learn to avoid that behavior, and later still we learn why it was bad for us.
Being omnipotent and benevolent this god has the power and presumably the motivation to make bad decisions painful for us. Not necessarily lethal, so we have no opportunity to learn. But at the very least he could issue consequences for actions that do nothing to invalidate free will but at the same time protect the innocent. Thus, as Tracie put it, we could stop the rapist and protect the child rather than promise punishment in the afterlife. None of this would compromise our freedom or his benevolence. And that's just off the top of his head with my limited human imagination. He's supposed to be omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient. I'm sure he could have come up with a far better solution but he didn't. Why?
Now about natural disasters. If we assume God is good then we also assume that he does not cause natural disasters to occur, but that does mean he permits them to occur. How is a benevolent God permit such things to occur? Let's take it this way. Say that the only evil in the world was that which is committed against one another. Natural disasters cease to exist, sickness ceases to exist, starvation ceases to exist, and so on and so forth. The world is perfect in form and function. Well then what need do we have of God? I believe that one of the best things about the gospel is that humans are invited to participate within it. Things such as hunger would be eliminated if it were for the efforts of mankind. I mean look at all the good we do already with so much evil in the world. I feel like these horrible evils in the world occur so that mankind may surmount them and in serving our fellow man share in the divinity of God, in a small way.
Just so I understand you correctly, you're saying here that we couldn't participate in this world if there weren't any natural disasters to cause us suffering? I'm not sure how this follows. Even without natural disasters there's plenty for us to do, plenty of ways this god could demonstrate his existence and outline his desires to us. Again, he's supposed to be both omnipotent and omniscient. He had ...
I take issue with the fact that God should intervene with our own free will when it comes to evil. Let's take the child rapist analogy. So some depraved human being wishes to rape a child. It's a horrible atrocity so why doesn't God step in and stop it? Well, should he revoke that individuals free will? Should he take control of that person and expunge the though from his mind? If that's the case then we have no free will. At that point humanity is simply reduced to puppets. We can't take anything as our own thoughts then, because God has the power to over ride our will with His own. At that point God is a tyrant since he has removed our free will. In the SMBC comic you linked that shortens the "Benevolence" leg of the table. So should God strike down this child molester before he commits this atrocity? Maybe a bolt of lightning sizzles the rapist into a crispy splotch on the side walk? Well that doesn't make God any better. What good is free will if we are free to use it, even to disobey God, but are then destroyed before we can even ask for forgiveness? This also compromises his benevolence.
What happens when we touch a hot stove? We burn ourselves, right? It's okay for us to learn from our mistakes, and the pain tells us we did something wrong. Sooner or later we figure out what it was that was wrong and learn to avoid that behavior, and later still we learn why it was bad for us.
Being omnipotent and benevolent this god has the power and presumably the motivation to make bad decisions painful for us. Not necessarily lethal, so we have no opportunity to learn. But at the very least he could issue consequences for actions that do nothing to invalidate free will but at the same time protect the innocent. Thus, as Tracie put it, we could stop the rapist and protect the child rather than promise punishment in the afterlife. None of this would compromise our freedom or his benevolence. And that's just off the top of his head with my limited human imagination. He's supposed to be omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient. I'm sure he could have come up with a far better solution but he didn't. Why?
Now about natural disasters. If we assume God is good then we also assume that he does not cause natural disasters to occur, but that does mean he permits them to occur. How is a benevolent God permit such things to occur? Let's take it this way. Say that the only evil in the world was that which is committed against one another. Natural disasters cease to exist, sickness ceases to exist, starvation ceases to exist, and so on and so forth. The world is perfect in form and function. Well then what need do we have of God? I believe that one of the best things about the gospel is that humans are invited to participate within it. Things such as hunger would be eliminated if it were for the efforts of mankind. I mean look at all the good we do already with so much evil in the world. I feel like these horrible evils in the world occur so that mankind may surmount them and in serving our fellow man share in the divinity of God, in a small way.
Just so I understand you correctly, you're saying here that we couldn't participate in this world if there weren't any natural disasters to cause us suffering? I'm not sure how this follows. Even without natural disasters there's plenty for us to do, plenty of ways this god could demonstrate his existence and outline his desires to us. Again, he's supposed to be both omnipotent and omniscient. He had the bright idea of making the Apostles' speech clearly understood by everyone in range of hearing; not as babbles to be interpreted but "how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?" But he never follows up on this, never creates a book that can be read and understood by anyone regardless of your native language. He never provides followup to the original scriptures to provide clarification even as human understanding diverged. The number of miracles claimed have dropped off sharply in the Western world just since the invention of the camera alone.
This is the behavior of a benevolent person?
I would like to thank you for indulging me and for having this discussion. I don't want this to devolve into an argument (although feel free to message me if you would like). I don't feel like that was the purpose of your post so I won't be responding again. You brought forth some very good points. I'll certainly be thinking about them and considering them for a while. I hope maybe you enjoyed what I said as well. Thank you for not being belligerent to someone who holds different beliefs than yourself. In the end I realize that we are all trying to understand suffering in the world, and we all find some way to do that be it through religion or looking inward to ourselves.
It's understood that we disagree. Human nature being what it is disagreement is inevitable. The question is whether we can disagree regarding the topic without turning it into a personal dispute. That's why we have #2 under the Do Not rules: attack the argument, not the arguer.
He's conceding that his god isn't benevolent and the source of all goodness. I'm okay with that. Basically he invokes the argument that his god works in mysterious ways and we can't know anything -- except when we do. It basically boils down to "I believe it's true because I want it to be true." I have never found that terribly compelling, even when I was a Christian.
I don't understand how you took that out of that quote. He is simply setting up his argument that God can indeed exist in a world filled with evil. He is stating that saying, "Well innocent people are killed by other people = this is murder = murder is evil = evil exists = God is not evil = so God doesn't exist." is not an appropriate way to disprove the existence of God. Just because evil does exist doesn't mean God cannot. Maybe I'm not taking your argument far enough, but I'm having a hard time seeing that.
The Problem of Evil goes far, far deeper than the fact that people hurt other people. We can understand that, and even accept that it doesn't require any gods to happen. The fact that children are born with painful, debilitating disease through no fault of their own emphasizes the problem of evil. The fact that innocents are slaughtered by natural disasters is not something we can square with a benevolent god. To borrow from Tracie Harris:
An omnimax god is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and all-good. Even when you disregard evil of human origin, there's far too much suffering inflicted on the innocent to support that claim. But note that the problem of evil doesn't disprove any gods, it simply disproves any benevolent gods.
I take issue with the fact that God should intervene with our own free will when it comes to evil. Let's take the child rapist analogy. So some depraved human being wishes to rape a child. It's a horrible atrocity so why doesn't God step in and stop it? Well, should he revoke that individuals free will? Should he take control of that person and expunge the though from his mind? If that's the case then we have no free will. At that point humanity is simply reduced to puppets. We can't take anything as our own thoughts then, because God has the power to over ride our will with His own. At that point God is a tyrant since he has removed our free will. In the SMBC comic you linked that shortens the "Benevolence" leg of the table. So should God strike down this child molester before he commits this atrocity? Maybe a bolt of lightning sizzles the rapist into a crispy splotch on the side walk? Well that doesn't make God any better. What good is free will if we are free to use it, even to disobey God, but are then destroyed before we can even ask for forgiveness? This also compromises his benevolence.
Now about natural disasters. If we assume God is good then we also assume that he does not cause natural disasters to occur, but that does mean he permits them to occur. How is a benevolent God permit such things to occur? Let's take it this way. Say that the only evil in the world was that which is committed against one another. Natural disasters cease to exist, sickness ceases to exist, starvation ceases to exist, and so on and so forth. The world is perfect in form and function. Well then what need do we have of God? I believe that one of the best things about the gospel is that humans are invited to participate within it. Things such as hunger would be eliminated if it were for the efforts of mankind. I mean look at all the good we do already with so much evil in the world. I feel like these horrible evils in the world occur so that mankind may surmount them and in serving our fellow man share in the divinity of God, in a small way.
I would like to thank you for indulging me and for having this discussion. I don't want this to devolve into an argument (although feel free to message me if you would like). I don't feel like that was the purpose of your post so I won't be responding again. You brought forth some very good points. I'll certainly be thinking about them and considering them for a while. I hope maybe you enjoyed what I said as well. Thank you for not being belligerent to someone who holds different beliefs than yourself. In the end I realize that we are all trying to understand suffering in the world, and we all find some way to do that be it through religion or looking inward to ourselves.
What happens when we touch a hot stove? We burn ourselves, right? It's okay for us to learn from our mistakes, and the pain tells us we did something wrong. Sooner or later we figure out what it was that was wrong and learn to avoid that behavior, and later still we learn why it was bad for us.
Being omnipotent and benevolent this god has the power and presumably the motivation to make bad decisions painful for us. Not necessarily lethal, so we have no opportunity to learn. But at the very least he could issue consequences for actions that do nothing to invalidate free will but at the same time protect the innocent. Thus, as Tracie put it, we could stop the rapist and protect the child rather than promise punishment in the afterlife. None of this would compromise our freedom or his benevolence. And that's just off the top of his head with my limited human imagination. He's supposed to be omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient. I'm sure he could have come up with a far better solution but he didn't. Why?
Just so I understand you correctly, you're saying here that we couldn't participate in this world if there weren't any natural disasters to cause us suffering? I'm not sure how this follows. Even without natural disasters there's plenty for us to do, plenty of ways this god could demonstrate his existence and outline his desires to us. Again, he's supposed to be both omnipotent and omniscient. He had ...
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