Problem of evil

[Kaylee]

Isn't there another religious philosophy that God didn't so much create the world as organize it from existing chaos? And that God intentionally let some existing chaos remain to enable the possibility of free will and for some other reasons?

Under that philosophy one could conclude that evil is not something distinct but a result of the remaining chaos which sometimes results from good things not being in the right balance -- a necc. side effect if this world is to retain enough chaos to allow people to have free will.

For example the ability to replace dying cells is good, but excessive new cell growth is bad (tumors and cancer)

If people had absolutely no ambition and no desire to own stuff they could conceivably be unable to take care of themselves and their families. However those same desires unchecked leads to greed, criminal behavior and even war.

I don't recall where I heard this idea. Hope I did justice to it and that it makes sense.

edited to rephrase some sentences because I posted before I had ANY coffee.

 

[Shevek-72]

There's your problem right there. You've just guaranteed an irreconcilable dilemma.

It's like saying, "I believe in a circle with corners", then carrying on about how we might resolve the quandry of angles existing within arcs.

Well, there's nothing wrong with starting an argument with making some assumptions for the sake of it. I believe BJQ didn't make a bad start with stating:

His Assumptions:

- There is a god
- It created everything

His Observations:

- Evil exist

And his Questions:

- What does it tell us about that god and the relationship it's creation (humans) have / should have with it?

Which is all well and legit, but unfortunately he/she does not make deductions from these premises but continues with irrelevance, straw man arguments, appeals to fairy tale and introduces new assumptions on the fly. To cover this up the usual assertion is made that this subject can not be approached intelligently anyhow (aka "It's a mystery").

In a later post he/she than contradicts his/her own assumptions.

I'ts always helpful to know what your questions, assumptions, observations and conclusions are. It helps to determine for yourself if your writing is
"unintelligent and a waste of [everybodys] time".

 

[Robin]

There is more to consider in this "problem of evil" than one might think.

Yes there is, although quite a lot of it has been covered in some detail here.

I will respond in the spirit of your post and the presupposition of God's existence.

Should we love him or hate him. Neither.

You say God is a mystery and if there was a God that would certainly be true, we could never hope to comprehend him.

This means that God will always be indistinguishable from natural forces from our point of view. So if God does exist we should regard him in the same way as we regard natural forces. We might love life, but we don't love the big bang, evolution or abiogenesis for bringing us life. And we don't hate the blind forces that create diseases.

So why should we love or hate a God that is, from our point of view, no different from any of these things?

 

[Anacoluthon64]

...snip...
So why should we love or hate a God that is, from our point of view, no different from any of these things?

And therefore, by simple extension, why should we believe in his existence at all when his effects are thus indistinguishable from those of competing views, merely because he supposedly has the ability to perform miracles that are any case not in evidence?

'Luthon64

 

[Ossai]

Shera

Isn't there another religious philosophy that God didn't so much create the world as organize it from existing chaos? And that God intentionally let some existing chaos remain to enable the possibility of free will and for some other reasons?

You just removed omniscient.

Ossai

 

[Kaylee]

You just removed omniscient.

True. But it appears this philosophy believes that God could be omniscient if He had chosen to be, but He didn't. At least not within our universe.

 

[Z]

Yes. No reason to ask, the bible in which Satan is mentioned says so. Did God create you? Yes, and you chose to turn from Him as Satan had done. Do you wish God had not created you?

If God creates Satan, and Satan creates evil, then God created evil.

It's that simple.

However, I do not believe that God cares about evil. And I don't believe that God cares who turns to him, away from him, or any other direction. Nor do I think my creation was a willful and deliberate, specific, act of God, but rather an incidental and indirect act of creation.... i.e. God creates Universe and Physical Laws and, through pure luck, I end up created eventually.

Nor do I believe, whatsoever, in Satan... nor in any other mythical Biblical figure.

So I'm left with a simple situation: God creates everything, including evil. And cares not one whit for the problems of morality we create. Evil is our problem, not God's.

 

[Pauliesonne]

There is NO such things as good and evil.

The only way good and evil exists is through the perception of others.

 

[Piscivore]

There is NO such things as good and evil.

The only way good and evil exists is through the perception of others.

You copied me, you evil bastage!

 

[Jesus]

There is NO such things as good and evil.

The only way good and evil exists is through the perception of others.

Even if one has a wholly subjective view of morality, the problem of evil persists. If I define "good" as benevolence, generosity, and honesty, there are opposite forms of behavior for all of those. Whatever qualities you use to define "good," you can then assign the opposite traits to "evil."

Still, there is an issue that the OP doesn't seem to address. Let's presuppose, like the author said, that god exists. If we're talking about the Christian god, then he needs to be both all-powerful and all-good. Regardless of the definition of "good," the opposite exists, which means god allows it on some level.

So BJQ87, how do you parse these out?
1) God is all-powerful
2) God is all-good
3) Evil exists

You can hand us all the claptrap about free will, but if evil exists in any form, then either premise 1 or premise 2 are flawed.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Ancient Dark Good / Young Green Evil

As I was standing on a rock one day I saw two trees, an ancient/dark looking one, and a young/green looking one. God created them both. It was very simple in that moment that God created both darkness and light- as opposed to the questioning. The tendency of doubting in ones heart when one sees the evil in this world that takes place.

Perhaps the ancient dark tree was good, and the young/green one was evil: attempting to steal the ground, air, and sun the ancient tree had claimed. You are imposing a fairy tale on them to presume which is which because of color and age.

There's no good or evil in nature. Everything is just trying to survive and procreate for its own selfish reason.

 

[Robin]

And therefore, by simple extension, why should we believe in his existence at all when his effects are thus indistinguishable from those of competing views, merely because he supposedly has the ability to perform miracles that are any case not in evidence?

'Luthon64

True. But the genius of modern theistic philosophy has been to make this sound like an insurmountable problem for atheists.

For example they say of any instance of suffering that atheists are faced with the task of analysing every possible consequence and showing that there is not one which is a greater good.

You've got to applaud the moxy if nothing else.

 

[Anacoluthon64]

True. But the genius of modern theistic philosophy has been to make this sound like an insurmountable problem for atheists.

For example they say of any instance of suffering that atheists are faced with the task of analysing every possible consequence and showing that there is not one which is a greater good.

An impossible ask, of course. One suspects that they would continue to resort to a similarly facile mode of argument when faced with the rather obvious question of what "greater good" is served by a muti-tiered regress of "evils," i.e. where an "evil" provokes another "evil," triggering another and so forth. Are all of these "evils" considered to be in effect the same one? If not, it would undermine the "greater good" position as a counterexample. If so, a new question about the purpose of the complexity arises.

It might, however, be worth noting that pagan blood sacrifices can be validated on a similarly flaky basis as follows:

Explorer: "Why do you sacrifice these virgins?"

Chief: "To keep the god of the volcano appeased."

Explorer: "Oh, right. And does it work?"

Chief: "Yes. We haven't had an eruption since, um, Thursday two weeks ago about teatime."

You've got to applaud the moxy if nothing else.

Amen to that.

'Luthon64