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Forums - Politics Discussion - Why is there evil in the world, if God is all-powerful and good?

KLAMarine said:
HylianYoshi said:
I don't know.

Going off of what I know about religion and whatnot, I guess the assumption would be that (insert deity) lets you do whatever you want (aka free will), evil or not, and then he/she judges you in the afterlife. Like sifting through everyone, seeing who's good or not or whatever. So in that way, his/her intentions could be interpreted as good,
spemanig said:
Free will.
Shiken said:

Free will

 

EDIT: LMFAO Spemanig we posted at the exact same time.  =P

Fei-Hung said:
Pleasantly surprised by the comments so far. Logically it also makes sense. If said deity were to make decisions for us and constantly intervene etc, there wouldn't be much point for a judgement day or Reincarnation.
StarOcean said:
Free will like others have said along with other factors depending on which religion you're specifically targeting.

If I could end world hunger, slavery, human suffering, and the ills of the world, I'd be more than happy to surrender my free will.

 

Am I alone in this?

Fuck that garbage, I'll keep my free will



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It can't be "free will" if god created evil and if he is omniscient. If both these things are true then it would be like dropping a ball and then being surprised when it hit the ground. God would have known from the moment he created Adam--no, actually before he created him--that he would shave cats and watch porn.

It's more likely that god would not be omniscient and that he was just doing some kind of thought experiment with humanity. That, or he's a voyeur. I mean, seriously, how boring would humanity have been otherwise? You can have HBO or you can have the Oprah Network, which are you going to pick?



“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Epicurus

Ponder this fellow gamers.
I used to be a very aggressive atheist but now I am more of a mellow humanist type.



StarOcean said:
KLAMarine said:

If I could end world hunger, slavery, human suffering, and the ills of the world, I'd be more than happy to surrender my free will.

 

Am I alone in this?

Fuck that garbage, I'll keep my free will

*shakes head, turns 360 degrees, walks away*



KLAMarine said:
StarOcean said:

Fuck that garbage, I'll keep my free will

*shakes head, turns 360 degrees, walks away*

Umm... wouldn't walking 360 degrees make you face me again and therefore walk towards me?



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MoscowPuzzles said:
Free Will fails to resolve things like natural disasters or genetic diseases. How vile is it that there is a system setup to wipe out thousands/millions of people?

Free Will in the libertarian sense is also contingent upon determinism being false...which is actually contrary to the evidence and delusive as a result.

Yes I was going to add something along these lines to my other post....

Where you are born, who you are born to, opportunities, IQ, disability etc are far beyond anyone's control and set you down a certain path. 

 



StarOcean said:
KLAMarine said:

*shakes head, turns 360 degrees, walks away*

Umm... wouldn't walking 360 degrees make you face me again and therefore walk towards me?



If there is a God, I'd like to think that he'd trust his creations enough to do what they want in life. "destiny" is such an horryfying concept to me, to think that everything really is written in stone and free will is just an illusion, it's freaking terryfying. Somebody make that into a videogame, wait, no, I'll make that into a game, maybe. Original Idea Do Not Steal Plz.



I'm now filled with determination.

StarOcean said:
KLAMarine said:

*shakes head, turns 360 degrees, walks away*

Umm... wouldn't walking 360 degrees make you face me again and therefore walk towards me?

Ha! Turned 90 degrees left, turned 90 degrees right, then turned 180 degrees and walked away.

 

(90+90+180) degrees = 360 degrees



There are no reasons for these things to exist in a world with a benevolent and omnipotent god.

But, let's go back to evil and free will.

Two siblings are in a room. A boy of 16 and a girl of 12. The girl is about to be raped.

What does god do? He says "ok fine. You go ahead and rape her. But I'm going to punish you later." That's what our heavenly father would do.

What would you do if you were their earthly father? Would you just say, "ok well I don't want to violate your free will son. You go ahead." I'm guessing and hoping that you wouldn't. Any sane father would be willing to violate his son's free will to save his daughter.

And what about "evil" or just "bad" things that happen that are not caused by human free will? Why should something like guinea worm exist? (a waterborn parasite that grows in your body and has to be extracted through sores that form in your limbs in an excruciating process? Why should children be born with deformed brains and bodies when their mother was taking all proper prenatal actions? Why should a 6 year old have leukemia? Why should thousands die in a tidal wave? Can't god stop these things without violating anyone's free will?

And how about the evil that is caused BY GOD HIMSELF. Assming your god is the judeochristian one...

“Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:16-18)

Kill all the little baby boys, but keep the virgins for yourself. Guess he wasn't too concerned with violating free will, as long as he had his prophets do it for him.

And for a more widely known example, how about killing all the first porn Egyptian children? Isn't that a big ol' violation of free will? And if he's going to kill something, why not kill pharoh instead of babies? Kind of a dick move.

The simple answer is that there is no god, or at least not an omnipotent or benevolent one. The world we see simply isn't consistent with that. You could make up whatever pseudophilosophical garbage you want to reconcile reality with your religion of choice. However, a far simpler explanation is that we find ourselves in a world which was not particularly designed to be hospitable to us, with humans who were not designed to be especially good, and so bad shit happens.