Consequences are simply consequences, neither good nor evil.

on your definition of evil.

If you work backwards from there you'll be hard-pressed to find an evil that is not subjective.

They generally vary by culture.

Especially in a lightly populated early tribal culture where each member was vital to the survival of the group and where each member of the group probably spent most of the time in very close proximity to the rest of the group.

In a modern society, sheer numbers allow for a certain level of sociopathy.

Applying either concept to a god(s) would therefore be nonsensical.

Suppose that there was a species, here or on another planet, and that species was taking actions that endangered the entire planet? Would it be a good thing if that species was to suffer an extinction event?

Is encephalitis evil?

If good and evil are purely utilitarian, then answers depend on the species you ask.

Is it a good thing the dinosaurs went extinct? Is it a bad thing homo sapiens sapiens is dominant?

So positing that the presence of good proves anything about a deity is quite controvertible. Witness the extensive debate.

Wittgenstein said that if there are things that we cannot speak definitively about, we should "pass over them in silence."

But the incontrovertible fact that there is a "religion" group, as well as groups devoted specifically to various forms of belief, suggests that Wittgenstein's suggestion is not shared by many.

That's what "depends on your definition" means.
Are you saying atheist can't call anything evil?

The question is, on what basis?

that is the question.

But nonbelief in god(s) doesn't preclude that.

From a humanist perspective, good and evil exist according to their consequences for people, and have nothing to do with the pronouncements of some deity.

It does not by any measure establish that good and evil exist.

in which I have little or no specificity or definitive proof of any of the elements in the topic of discussion. So here it is. If I choose to believe in God and that belief helps me in my journey to become a better person, is that not a positive in the broader sense? If I choose not to believe and that lack of belief makes me strive to become a better person, is that not a positive in the broader sense? So what I don't get is why there is all this back and forth regarding a supreme being or lack thereof. IMHO, it is intellectualization used to solidify an individual's belief or non-belief. Whatever works, go for it!

Also my personal view. But in the religion group there is as much discussion of theological issues as at a seminary.

This post is a response to a post basically claiming that the existence of evil proves that God is evil. A variant of the "if evil exists that is proof that there is no God" argument.

profound and expressed in a gentle and amicable manner. Kudos to you for your tenacity in dealing with what, IMHO, I deem to be abject and senseless negativity.

I think most of the debate here is respectful and open. Obviously some of us believe strongly about these issues. Others are honest about not having a definite opinion.

all beliefs lead people to become better
And not, you know, fly planes into buildings or blow up health clinics, or stop the teaching of science.
Or demand the laws reflect what they believe their God demands.
Stuff like that

And have committed horrendous acts.

And given that the great majority of all people do not commit such acts, perhaps these actions reflect that the actors themselves are outliers, the exception.

we shouldnt discuss the influence or religious belief or the existence of a God?

And the fact that we are in fact discussing such issues makes it obvious I think.

But given that most people do not commit violent acts, blame the actor no matter what the actor claims as motivation.

to cornball.

the thread line isn't clear on a tablet.

I wouldnt see a need to comment on your post there.

Euclid's proof of an infinite number of prime numbers is incontrovertible even if there's some people who might question it or be unable to follow it, for example.

Side note: The example of an incontrovertible proof on that Wikipedia page stinks! There was a woman who was a chimera (having more than one set of DNA from separately fertilized eggs that fused together in the womb) that nearly had her children taken away because her blood DNA didn't match with the DNA of her children. Investigators assumed that she was wrongly claiming the children of one of her relatives, and they threatened to remove them unless she confessed. Family members who testified that they WITNESSED her giving birth to those kids were largely ignored. It was later realized that the DNA of her reproductive organs indeed matched the DNA of her kids!

Water is wet is one example that just came to mind. And fire is hot. But the original post to which I referred made a claim of incontrovertibility that cannot be defended.

Your example of Euclid might apply to a number of scientific statements. But incontrovertibility and incomprehensibility are different concepts.

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And in some Philosophy. Maybe they are only doubted by people who ... just don't know formal logic.

So for example, consider the famous problem of the existence of evil: If God is all good and knowing and all powerful, why does he create evil?

Or? Maybe we should agree and even insist: Good creates Evil.

Suggesting that Rug's point on atheism is good. Or even that atheism is preferable to Christianity . Since its "good" God just creates Evil. (As logical concommitants?).

Atheism fortunately being "beyond good and evil."

Atheism is merely the opposite of theism. So if one can lead to evil so can the other. All belief systems can be and are used as justification for taking actions.

If atheism is truly "beyond good and evil", as you postulate, does that mean that atheists cannot commit actions that are judged to be evil?

When he said that all things are permissible to him. But not all things are convenient.

or Shibolleth, to which you refer?

What does this term mean? Some wrathful (mal follado) aged male figure with a beard? Please explain.

My belief is in a Creator who created all of existence and after creating, allowed that existence to evolve.

Universal mathematics makes Life, everywhere she is possible, possible.

(No golem-concepts required).

Cheers, thanks,

God does not intervene in this world. Good and evil are human concepts that allow us to live in societies. That is one way to square "the problem of evil" with the existence of God.

Which explains all these bad outcomes. He doesn't give a shit!

Joe bless you all!


Here:

designed sentient beings who could only behave one way, there would be no free will and no possibility of growth.

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Therefore, growth is not always a great or necessary virtue, in Christianity.

Logically, those who seek "oneness with God" therefore, would seek ceasing to grow.

That no doubt encourages what we see in Christians in point of fact. Since they hold on to old religious ideas, and will not grow past them.

Is the constantly expanding universe a sign of that dual growth?

But I'm not a fan of either.

Wouldn't an expanding universe necessarily be expanding into a larger if empty space?

Is free will so awesome it's worth the cost of admission? Some would say no.

So there is no alternative, except in speculation, to free will.

This is argument being made:

IF (God chooses not intervene when evil is done to his children)

BUT (God takes no action against evil because intervention would rob mankind of free will)

THEN (God's omission of action is morally justified)


This argument takes for granted free will is of sufficient good to mankind that it is worth God not intervening in the affairs of men. I'm addressing the wobbly logic of the argument, not the existence of free will.

IS the point for Christians.

And all that happens because sentient beings exercise their free will happens solely because sentient beings exercise their free will.

In my view, the argument that the existence of evil, or bad things, or disease, or bad luck is without merit. It proves nothing about the existence or non-existence of a Creator.

Yes, free will is really important to Christianity. That does not intrinsically say anything about the value of free will. "We as Christians believe it is good" is not proof that it is good.

I would argue that the Creator created as an act of love for the creation.

Or mutation. Or car accidents.

The Creator didn't create ionizing radiation? The Creator didn't create inertia?

And what was created was allowed to develop.

If he did, then he is responsible for it. If not, he's guilty of criminal neglect, like a parent who leaves their child unsupervised in a room full of loaded guns.

You have a child. A number of years later, your child has a child. That grandchild at one point commits a murder.

Are you responsible for the murder?

The universe is capricious. If god designed the universe, then he is responsible for its capriciousness and whatever misery that brings to those he's forced to live within it.

I think we can all agree that a car company that knowingly produces unsafe vehicles bears responsibility for any deaths or injuries caused by their defective product. Why should god get a pass?

and designing something that might be misused at some point are two entirely different things.

A knife can be used to stab someone. Was the inventor of the knife evil?

I'm talking about the universe, broadly. It's a dangerous place, and it doesn't care for your happiness or your suffering. At any point, any cell in your body could go apeshit and start dividing for no reason. Six months to a year later, you're dead.

At any point, a chunk of rock the size of New York could crash into the surface of the Earth, producing an extinction event the likes of which our planet has seen five times already.

At any point, our local star could hiccup, spewing a torrent of gamma radiation into space, killing every living organism on Earth.

Just here on Earth there are earthquakes, volcanoes, avalanches, mudslides, and cyclonic storms. There are wildfires and floods. There are droughts and famines. There are viruses and bacteria, cancers and birth defects and congenital degenerative disorders. There are fucking exploding lakes.

of all of these things that you mentioned is either proof of the non-existence of a deity, or proof that a deity must be evil.

It is neither. All of these things mentioned are things that can and do happen in a dynamic universe.

There is a third option.

A) Your god doesn't exist.
B) Your god is evil.
C) Your god is just a clueless, careless dick. (The god that would have created your "dynamic universe" and then leave its creation to suffer.)

It's fairly simple:

Suffering exists. If we live in a created universe, then this suffering is either intentional or accidental. If you wish to debate whether or not inflicting suffering intentionally or accidentally is ethical, or even loving as you put it, then by all means fire away, but whether or not the suffering is inflicted by man or nature is irrelevant. As is the dynamism of the universe.

That such a statement is unprovable and therefor not irrefutable. At least according to the accepted definition of the word irrefutable.

This is a sub-thread with a more specific bent.

No, it is not irrefutable God is evil... due in no small part to 1) Evil being a subjective term, and 2) God's apparent lack of existence. What I can do is give you my subjective impression of what evil is, and then within those parameters show this God character to be evil. If you disagree, you can show that my impression of evil is somehow off-kilter, or show that this god character doesn't fit within those parameters.

If your refutation to any of these points is "I have faith", we could save ourselves the headache and just forget this ever happened.

And your conception of what a god must be, and what that god's intent must be, reflects your personal conception. It says nothing about the Creator.
But to frame differently,

If the intent of the actor is to do harm, we might judge that actor to be acting with evil intent. Absent intent, would you say that the action is evil?

So well done, you made your point!

Or could, if you believed in a clueless god.

You still haven't managed to.

Clueless god: 1, guillaumeb: 0

Not mine alone, there are many Christians who hold similar beliefs. But this is my understanding. And, it is my belief. I know and accept that I can never prove or disprove it. That is the nature of faith and belief.

"The creator created existence."

You should preface that with "I believe" if it is merely your belief. You should also define what it is you mean by your creator, without the obvious tautology. If you are able to, that is. Haven't seen you do it yet.

I feel no need to re-iterate every position I have taken every time I write a response. And I see no one else here doing that.

What do I mean by "the Creator"? The entity that created existence, and having created, allowed it to develop.

As if it were accepted fact.

But it's not.

Thanks for proving my point about being unable to define the term you want to use, though. The creator creates! That helps!

I believe in God but at this point in my life I have given up on the idea that everything happens for a reason or it is God's will.

I blame people for our problems not God.

The Creator created and that creation evolved. What is done with the creation is determined by the creatures in it.

If God is capable of preventing smallpox, but let millions suffer and die from it over the years, then he is, at best, negligent, and still morally culpable for his inaction. He is not good, by human standards.

ON EDIT: He's even worse than a negligent parent who let a child die through medical neglect, most of the time, the parent didn't create the disease as well.

Further EDIT: In addition, if God is a non-interventionist, then nothing that the Bible claims happened regarding God's many interventions happened. No Jesus being God, no miracles, etc.

are human constructs, like god, designed to keep the species survival intact with the largest numbers possible.

Consequently actions that benefit the group are deemed good and those that are not are deemed bad. It's a uniquely human condition, after all the lion who eats his son and impregnates his daughter isn't considered a child killing rapist he's just a lion. Because the lions can't act in concert as humans do they are endangered by humans, in fact every other species on the planet is endangered by humans as humans work together to dominate every other species for the sole purpose of advancing humans on the planet...

When the number of humans reaches critical mass we will either sort it out and move forward to dominate other worlds or we will trigger an extinction level event to allow nature to begin anew with another species and try the adventure all over again...maybe the neanderthals aren't destroyed in the next go round.

A lion eating a deer is not committing evil.
Malaria taking a life is not evil.
An earthquake destroying things is not evil.

That's a very basic standard.

But there is a reason that faith is called faith, and not science. There are different standards.

He's just lazy and doesn't give a shit.
Pretty lackluster god all these people believe in. Funny he doesn't show himself more often, or help us out once in a while. Instead he makes a bunch of rules and threatens humanity with eternal torture if we don't follow them and kiss his feet at the same time..
How people, adults even, can fall for it, still believe it and even teach it to children boggles the mind.

Knowing better, but doing worse.

The best case scenario put forth by Christian theodicy is that God created man and left him to his own devices so he could make use of free will (a terrific gift, so I'm told), which is essentially the cosmic equivalent of a parent leaving a child unsupervised in a room full of loaded weapons. I'd say that's pretty evil.

One could say god is evil.
Free will shouldn't include bone cancer in babies.

and a healthy dose of projection.

A biblical literalist trying to call someone else out on biblical literalism.

Oh wait, the stuff you take literally is OK, right?

But feel free to refute me on this claim of yours, with links to the appropriate posts of mine, to prove what you posted.

Because you instead use the term as a weapon against anyone who presents or believes in a religion differently than you think it should be done.

And you don't get to demand ANYTHING from me until you retract your false claim and apologize. Deal with it. Show some decency at long last.

why did you describe me that way?

You take at least part of the Christian bible literally, or else you wouldn't be a Christian. Well, you CLAIM to be a Christian is all I can say I guess. Big question mark there.

That contradicts the definition of literalist.

Another one you provided in the new thread you had to go and create (as is your standard evidently) was this link:

https://gotquestions.org/biblical-literalism.html

Believe literally in everything in rhe bible..
How about these? Simple yes or no answers will suffice..
1. Adam and eve.
2. Dude living in a whale for a couple of days..
3. Noahs ark.
4. Jewish slaves in Egypt.
5. 40 years in the desert.
6. Buying bush/stone tablets
7. Virgin birth
8.Resurrection.

Those are pretty basic.. nevermind the bald man that summoned bears to slaughter some kids for making fun of him and those little tthings..
Should be easy to answer yes or no to those 8 points.

8 Literal and allegorical.

It was easy.

1 - Jesus went crazy-go-nuts on the moneylenders in the temple.

2- Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

3- Jesus said anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

4- Jesus exorcised demons from a naked man and forced them into a herd of pigs instead.

5- Jesus said do no violence no man, neither accuse him falsely.

6- Jesus instructed his followers to love their neighbors as they love themselves.

7- Jesus implored his followers to be merciful, as his Father is merciful.

8- Jesus said he who is without sin may cast the first stone.

9- Jesus said the truth will make you free.

10- Jesus said his one commandment was love another.

There is evidence of Hebrew slave OWNERS living in northern Egypt within ~400 years of that time period, but the people described in Exodus? Nope.

Actual Egyptian historians are always 'dunno what the fuck you're talking about' when the subject of Hebrew slaves building the pyramids comes up, nor the plagues, Passover, etc.

Complete void in one of the most complete and detailed archaeology-based national histories you can possibly think of. Total void. No exodus, no plagues, no Hebrew slaves.

The pyramid builders were well paid, well cared for, highly skilled workers. They lived in stone houses, when %90+ of the nation's population still lived in mud huts. When they had broken bones, the bones were properly set and mended. We can get this from simple archaeological observations. Social histories include references to the builders being served beer. Beer. These were not badly treated slaves. They were highly paid, highly skilled workers.

Thanks for the information.


http://www.aish.com/h/pes/t/f/British-Museum--Evidence-of-Israelite-Slavery-in-Egypt.html

None of this explains anything like the alleged death of the first born during Passover, etc. or the plagues, etc.

And many US museums for that matter.

Stealing artifacts and putting them in a museum, or

destroying artifacts under the guise of calling them idols?

Orthodox Jews would probably disagree. I can see Exodus as a metaphor for the Jews turning away from Yahweh. I see the story of the golden calf as a form of animistic idol worship.

What is your criteria for one being metaphorical, and one being literal?