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Fun fact, if you arrive at this conclusion as an 8 year old in Sunday school at your ultra fundamentalist Baptist Church and proceed to tell the teacher, you get yelled at and spanked by the teacher and your parents! Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
It was a test
It’s me, the Sunday school teacher
Yeah, and the Sunday school teacher failed.
I think the fundamental issue with this is that it presumes that our understanding of morality is perfect. If an all-knowing, all-powerful God acted contrary to our understanding of morality, or allowed something to happen contrary to our understanding of morality it would make sense for us to perceive that as undermining our understanding of God, making him imperfect. An all-knowing, all-encomposing God may have an understanding that we as mortals are incapable of understanding or perceiving.
It presumes to know a perfect morality while also arguing that morality can be subjective. It doesn’t make sense, just like an irrational belief in a God. I think the best way to go about this is to allow people to believe how they want and stop trying to convince people one way another about their beliefs. People get to believe differently and that is not wrong.
Edit: holy shit those reddit comments are full of /r/iamverysmart material lmfao
I don’t know if I misunderstood you, but “making millions of people suffer horribly and needlessly for no fault of their own might just be the most ethical thing there is, you never know, so let’s not draw any conclusions about God allowing that to happen.” just seems like a rather unconvincing line of thought to me. It’s essentially just saying “God is always right, accept that”
I guess god just gave us the moral understanding that his (in)actions are insanely immoral to test our unquestioned loyalty to him, or he just likes a little trolling. Or maybe he just doesn’t exist…
Any God that could prevent the suffering of millions and still allow it is not a God worthy of your worship.
Or maybe they have an afterlife of imeserable bliss to offset the injustice they experienced in life. There can always be a different reason thought of, but to conclude to one or the other side is illogical. As humans we want to know definitively and either side accepts their position as truth because it’s most comfortable. But in reality it’s ok to accept people’s beliefs one way or another because at the end of the day we’re just trying to make sense of our illogical and improbable existence.
A shame you didn’t reply to my comment from earlier, since the afterlife argument is used quite often in this instance while not actually resolving the underlying problem:
One answer I’ve heard from religious people is that life after death will make up for it all. But that doesn’t make sense either. If heaven/paradise/whatever puts life into such small perspective that our suffering doesn’t matter, then our lives truly don’t mean anything. It’s just a feelgood way of saying god couldn’t care less about child cancer - because in the grand scheme of things it’s irrelevant anyway.
You’re missing my point. It doesn’t matter. None of it makes sense. It makes just as much sense to believe in a god as it does to not believe in one, because at the end of the day it’s about an individuals coping with the unfairness of life, the inexplicable natute of existence and consciousness, and the inevitability of death. It’s about fulfilling an individuals need for purpose and place and whatever makes you most comfortable and gives you peace at the end of the day, fine. Trying to convince one another’s personal fantasies for our purpose in life is like trying to prove someone’s favorite food shouldn’t be their favorite food. It’s all personal.
So this kind of post confuses me. Who gives a fuck what people believe at the end of the day as long as it’s not hurting someone else and it gives the person peace. If one person’s beliefs don’t make sense to you or bring you peace, then you should believe something else. I don’t get this hating on believers or non believers. Who cares?
All fair. You’re simply having an entirely different conversation here. Should we respect people’s beliefs and religious affiliations? Sure. Don’t think anyone in this thread doubted that (or I haven’t seen anyone at least). It’s just not the point.
Maybe the questions of “what’s the truth” or “how far does logic get us in terms of religious statements” are irrelevant to you. Then this post simply isn’t for you. Some people, me included, find those questions interesting and worthwhile - although completely separate from your issue about respecting beliefs, illogical as they may be.
As far as this second issue goes: Based on the premises that bad stuff is indeed happening and people are suffering from it, the Epicurean paradox in my opinion very neatly explains why the abrahamic god cannot exist. I have no problem with people believing in him anyway; people also believe in fairies and ghosts and Santa Claus. Good for them. In the past I’ve occasionally encountered attempts to answer the Epicurean paradox from a religious perspective that struck me as very unkind; especially the attempt to belittle human suffering in itself. They come down to the notion that the suffering in this life is simply not that relevant in the grand scheme of things; it will be compensated or forgotten in the afterlife anyway; it’s necessary; it’s part of gods plan; or in any other way either actually good or just not that important. So in short: We get ignorant towards human suffering in order to avoid the paradox of it’s existence. But by far most religious people don’t think like that. They don’t think about the Epicurean paradox at all, or they simply don’t think it through. And that’s okay.
It’s also okay not to find any of this interesting. To me personally, my life, my relationship with myself and with the world, those questions were immensely important. Which is why I occasionally still participate in those conversations.
To add to your point, one of the reasons to have this conversation is to get everyone on the same page when trying to function as a community with a wide variety of beliefs: people are allowed to believe what they want to believe, but once someone starts trying to convince others their religious framework serves the “one true god” this framework exists to shut that down.
as long as it’s not hurting someone else
That’s the problem with most organised religions.
Or maybe they have an afterlife of imeserable bliss to offset the injustice they experienced in life. There can always be a different reason thought of, but to conclude to one or the other side is illogical.
It’s important to set clear definitions of what one understands as “truth”, “reality” and therefore “logical” to be able to have a meaningful discussion about this. And on the level of credibility, believing in stuff one religion preaches is as much worth as the other religion which at the end of the day is worth shit as there is no way to verify those. If I would say Iwe were giant pink elephants, hopping around on the moon and only imagining the world around us as we believe it to be, there would be no way to prove or disprove this as it is unverifyable in its nature.
Therefore, I prefer to label conceptions as truths which can be proven by the scientific method as its the best tool we have to produce verifiable facts about us and the world around us. Even if that would be an illusion, it’s at least a reasonable attempt.
I’d rather admit that I don’t know something than to just assume some sky grandpa or transcendal elephant goddess did it that way.
An all-knowing, all-encomposing God may have an understanding that we as mortals are incapable of understanding or perceiving.
That being could make us understand.
Sure, but the concept itself is that whatever entity it is knows better, so the fact you don’t undetstand has a purpose in the entity’s “grand scheme”.
What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter because as humans we’re all just trying to make sense of ourselves and our place in the universe. The fact we exist is perplexing, and however we decide to deal with that fact is up to each individual, and that’s ok.
If you skip the “evil” part and just start talking about “things that are bad for us humans” it’s still true though. Sure, maybe child cancer is somehow moral or good from the perspective of an immortal entity, but in this case this entity is obviously operating on a basis that is completely detached from what’s meaningful to us. Our lives, our suffering, our hardship - obviously none of all this is relevant enough to a potential god to do anything about it. Or he would, but can’t. Hence the Epicurean paradox.
One answer I’ve heard from religious people is that life after death will make up for it all. But that doesn’t make sense either. If heaven/paradise/whatever puts life into such small perspective that our suffering doesn’t matter, then our lives truly don’t mean anything. It’s just a feelgood way of saying god couldn’t care less about child cancer - because in the grand scheme of things it’s irrelevant anyway.
To us humans, our lives aren’t meaningless. Child cancer isn’t irrelevant. We care about what’s happening in this life and to the people we care about. How could a god be of any relevance to us if our understanding of importance, of value, of good and bad, is so meaningless to them? Why would we ever construct and celebrate organized religion around something so detached from ourselves? The answer is: We wouldn’t.
Either god is relevant to our lives or he isn’t. Reality tells us: He isn’t. Prayers don’t work, hardship isn’t helped, suffering isn’t stopped. Thought through to it’s inevitable conclusion the Epicurean paradox is logical proof that god as humans used to think about him doesn’t exist, and if something of the sorts exists, it’s entirely irrelevant to us.
You may be right.
If a god does exist, then bad things are part of its higher morality, or evil design. If a god doesn’t exist, then who cares? Why waste so much energy disproving its existence? Just ignore the crazy religious people, and try and help make the world better. Those people may waste time praying, or not doing anything to help suffering and then act high and mighty, but that will NEVER stop. Religion has and always will exist. It’s a way for people to cope with their insignificance, cope with unfairness, and grapple with the concept of death and accepting its inevitablity. If you want to feel and be better than them by actually helping humanity go for it. But at the end of the day people can believe what they will and that’s ok. But whether or not there is a god, despising or looking down on people for believing is just as productive as you believe praying is.
Why waste so much energy disproving its existence?
I hope it doesn’t annoy you, as I said in it other subcomment trees already, but I feel the need to say it for potential other readers:
Because organised religion has caused and does still cause a tremendous amount of suffering.Just ignore the crazy religious people
That is easier said than done if the crazy religious, spiritual, superstituous people don’t ignore you and murder you for supposedly being a witch. Sounds medieval, but it isn’t. https://www.dw.com/en/witch-hunts-a-global-problem-in-the-21st-century/a-54495289 Or if you are being beaten and killed for being homosexual. https://www.dw.com/en/iran-defends-execution-of-gay-people/a-49144899 Or if you are being “honour killed” because you didn’t want to live in a forced marriage and wear a head scarf. https://www.dw.com/en/honor-killings-in-germany-when-families-turn-executioners/a-42511928
Long story short: too many religious people suck a lot. Worsened by their need to expand their religion by proselytizing the naive and thereby nurturing more maniacs.
Why waste so much energy disproving its existence?
To mitigate suffering and save lives in the long run.
Religion has and always will exist.
Probably true but changeable by peacefully reducing member counts of religions.
It’s a way for people to cope with their insignificance, cope with unfairness, and grapple with the concept of death and accepting its inevitablity
Which shows the need for further societal support solutions on a larger scale which do not need religion to function. Think of better education, better access to medical and psychological help as a start.
I think the fundamental issue with this is that it presumes that our understanding of morality is perfect.
By that measure, all religions have the fundamental issue of presuming that they have any actual knowledge or understanding of their god(s).
But not all religions claim to have perfect knowledge of their god? Some acknowledge that god is greater and beyond our understanding
Conveniently, they claim to know what their god wants when they’re telling you want to do, but also claim not to understand their gods ways when challenged on parts of their faith.
I mean yeah, that is the point. A higher being told you to do X, you understood X exactly as it is a concept that you already have built upon in the course of your life. But you still cannot comprehend the higher being itself.
Take a simple thought experiment from flatland. If a spherical (3D) being were to appear on an otherwise 2D (flatland) world and say “Do not go to your house tonight”. The flatlander can understand the meaning of what the sphere said, but cannot comprehend the sphere itself in its entirety. No matter how the sphere explains himself to the flatlander, the flatlander may not have the correct picture of the sphere.
My point is that none of it makes sense. Our existence and consciousness in a vast universe doesn’t make sense. So at the end of the day, who cares what someone else believes to cope with that? Bad shit happens, people will explain it was for one purpose or another, but at the end of the day bad shit just happens and we should do our best to stop it, regardless of whos fault it is.
It’s so weird. Athiests claim to not believe in a god but then blame a god for when bad things happen, asking believers why their god would let it happen. Why do they care about what an imaginary god lets happen? Some sick fuck murdered a bunch of people, who gives a flying fuck what some random religon’s god says about it?
who cares what someone else believes to cope with that?
I start caring then those “coping mechanisms” begin to be imposed on people who aren’t members of that religion.
So at the end of the day, who cares what someone else believes to cope with that?
I care as soon as religion causes suffering. Which was and still is the case. (Sorry, have to say it again.)
but at the end of the day bad shit just happens and we should do our best to stop it, regardless of whos fault it is.
Agreed.
Athiests claim to not believe in a god but then blame a god for when bad things happen
Personally, I can imagine that’s frustration coming from people who may have been raised in a religious household. But I can’t speak for all. Haven’t heard from such a phenomenon though.
“Uhhh mysterious ways is why children get cancer”
This is a copout and you’re a silly little guy
Regarding your first paragraph:
According to the christian bible their God literally told them that for example killing is evil. And yet, it exists and God is a mass murderer according to bible accounts. There are various explicit and implicit definitions of good and evil available in that book which is supposedly written by their God in some way or another. Therefore, the omnipotent being defined clear rules of morality which it doesn’t even uphold itself.
allow people to believe how they want and stop trying to convince people one way another about their beliefs
Although I agree in principle with the notion of “live and let live”, organised religion has caused unfathomable suffering and it still does. In a lot of religions it is sadly incorporated into their very core. That’s something which I can not tolerate and will speak out against.
Double this.
Basically God’s evil != Human’s evil
But God told humans what good and evil is, therefore human’s evil is at least a subset of God’s evil.
AFAIK that’s true for Islam and several branches of orthodoxy.
What’s the definition of “all powerful”? Would an all-powerful being need to be able to draw a square without it being a rectangle? Or to build a house without walls?
If the answer is “no”, then I’d argue that the left most arrow/conclusion is logically wrong/misplaced/invalid. Assuming that “free will” is not possible without “evil”.
Agreed.
Evil is also a subjective concept, the same action can be perceived as good or evil depending on the understood context.
When you allow action on the subjective experience of life aka free will, you also allow evil to emerge from those actions as those interaction collide with the subjective experience of others.
Well sure. You could argue that evil is subjective. But even so we could just go with gods definition of “evil” things and use the 10 commandments as what he deems good or bad. In which case he created a world in which people will do the things he told them not to (same with the Apple) which makes him either not good or not all powerful.
Personally God becomes a lot more palettable when he is a non all powerful and non all knowing higher dimensional being that just created us and can’t be fucked dealing with this problem he created. Like avoiding cleaning the dishes in the sink.
I wouldn’t put too much credibility towards the commandments or any established religions for that matter.
The personification of god has always bothered me. The meme is a very effective argument against the all knowing super human god dogma with its cryptic masterplan but it falls flat when you personally relate god more to an intelligent-conscious force of nature.
That’s the thing, it seems too simplistic, though probably is a good start towards something, better understanding I suppose.
Like all planar squares must be rectangles, but curved square nonplanar washers exist… and those neither disprove nor prove the existence of a God (or Gods, or any spiritual beings at all)?:-P
The devil as they say is in the details, like what exactly is evil, in order to go from mere wordplay to true philosophical understanding. imho at least.
One day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you’ll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log.
As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children.
And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
-Sir Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
there is a non terminating loop in this diagram and that is where god is mic drop
A ghost hidden within the finite state automata, you say, dare we call it a Deus ex machina even? :-P
That’s where christians are stuck, at least
Good and Evil are ultimately relative and subjective terms. They also don’t really explore the mechanisms by which Good/Evil occur or are evaluated.
The argument from Evil really just boils down to “God isn’t real because I’m not happy”. And that doesn’t logically follow.
I had a conversation that ended up like this with someone who was genuinely trying to convert me to Christianity once. He eventually argued that god doesn’t need to be all powerful to be worshipped, since he is at least extremely powerful.
Sounds like he was worshipping a mid tier god. At least it’s better than those waste of space reasonably powerful ones.
The French have invented a nice too to deal with such “extremely powerful” scumbags.
This presupposes that “evil” exists as a universal concept that a god is bound, versus a god that exists outside of concepts of morality.
It doesn’t. What it simply presupposes that if God participates or allows it, that puts god in the “not all good” category
If God exists withtout morality, god cannot be all good to us
If a god exists, then it could reasonably be believed (without evidence, since there is no evidence for any god at all) that god is defining morality for us, rather than defining morality in regards to themselves. You could likewise argue that if it’s the will of god, then it must be good, and if it’s not the will of god, then it’s not good. So children getting cancer? That’s clearly god’s will, and is therefore good.
If a god exists, then it could reasonably be believed (without evidence, since there is no evidence for any god at all) that god is defining morality for us, rather than defining morality in regards to themselves.
Absolutely, and this is the frame of reference for the paradox. When, in the paradox parameters, we say “god cannot be all-good” what we are saying is “god cannot be all good as we understand it and as the Church is pitching him”
You could likewise argue that if it’s the will of god, then it must be good, and if it’s not the will of god, then it’s not good. So children getting cancer? That’s clearly god’s will, and is therefore good.
That is not a valid argument IMO, you are now redefining what is good or bad, not on the merits of the act or the consequences it carries, but by who executes it. You are deriving a quality from a source not intended to convey it. Like saying “if Ford made this car, it must be fast”
you are now redefining what is good or bad, not on the merits of the act or the consequences it carries, but by who executes it.
That’s a core Christian ideology though. They define god as being the source of everything that is good. Therefore, if god wills it, then regardless of how awful a thing seems, it must definitionally be good. Everything is contextual to the will of god. It’s a very simplistic view of morality (as is the idea that morality is universal and unchanging).
That’s a core Christian ideology though
Well considering this is not based on evidence or logic, I think it’s safe to dismiss from this argument.
To clarify, not attacking the validity of your point, I am attacking the “solution” presented here by the Church. Basically, “if we say it’s good you must take my word for it”… nope
So children getting cancer? That’s clearly god’s will, and is therefore good.
This answer to the Epicurean paradox is nothing but semantics. Let’s just rephrase the question:
- Can god be all powerful, all knowing, and all loving by human standards?
–> No. It creates a paradox. So, using human words and human concepts, god cannot possibly be all three things. Therefore, by human standards, we cannot expect love, omniscience, and omnipotence from him. That’s all the paradox proves.
It’s not a “gotcha” to claim that there might be other standards, which are meaningless to us, but somehow mean something equivalent than the concepts we already have words for. Those foreign concepts have obviously nothing to do with what we humans call power, knowledge, and love. They don’t mean anything and there’s literally no way to fill them with meaning either, since they are by definition independent of human concepts.
Claiming that god is something, but this something cannot be understood, is in all consequence an empty claim without any meaning. Easy to make, but at the end of the day says and proves nothing.
In Christianity there are several explicit or implicit definitions of good and evil and how their God judges them based on that. Therefore, concepts of morality exist in that context.
The god that gave His faithful the ten commandments and has His church promise heaven or hell depending on behavior exists outside of morality ? He literally defines it.
He/it creates and defines concepts of morality, but may not be a part of that system, or bound by those definitions. If we’re imagining a being of some kind that is (nominally) omnipotent and omnipresent, the I don’t see how we could realistically apply morality based on a mortal existence to it. How could you apply, for instance, a rule that says “don’t murder” to a thing that is incapable of death in any way that we would understand it?
I’m absolutely not a theist, but I think that exercises like this are ultimately futile. When I was a believer, this kind of mental exercise wouldn’t have made much of a dent in my belief. The nature of evil has been a study point for religious scholars for >2000 years, and mostly people ahve shrugged and said that they don’t understand, but they have faith, and that’s good enough. OTOH, I’m a sample size of one, so maybe there are people that would see this argument and question how rational their belief was.
How could you apply, for instance, a rule that says “don’t murder” to a thing that is incapable of death in any way that we would understand it?
What??!? Murdering is about ending other’s lives. If I were immortal, how does that prevent me from killing someone else who is mortal???
It’s ok to have faith which literally means you believe in something without a shred of evidence (or worse, evidence to the contrary). But again the epicurean paradox is not about the existence of god, is about defining his character
The actual “answer”, which is no answer at all, for this paradox is “god acts in mysterious ways”. That has been the cop out all religions have come up with
Murdering is about ending other’s lives.
But murder is also something that really only applies to rough equals; you wouldn’t call it murder to squish a mosquito. ‘Don’t murder’ is fundamentally a golden rule issue; you don’t want it done to you, so you shouldn’t do it to other people. If you can’t die, then that principle breaks down. (Unless there are other gods, and ‘death’ means something different to them? I think that’s getting into fantasy even more than religion usually does.)
But murder is also something that really only applies to rough equals;
Why?
you wouldn’t call it murder to squish a mosquito
I wouldn’t because killing animals is not in the definition of murder, but certainly PETA people would call me a murdered for simply eating a cow. I get there is nuance in the language but ending a life doesn’t really have much to do with me having a life as well.
‘Don’t murder’ is fundamentally a golden rule issue; you don’t want it done to you, so you shouldn’t do it to other people
You are conflating these 2; I see no relationship with these 2 concepts. I have never made a movie yet I have pirated some, do you imply I couldn’t possibly have pirated a movie since I do not have my own movie or similar intellectual property to be pirated from me?. The 10 commandments includes: “You shall not commit adultery.” If I am single, does that mean I am exempt?
I wouldn’t because killing animals is not in the definition of murder,
The definition of murder also doesn’t include a god killing another god.
You are conflating these 2; I see no relationship with these 2 concepts.
You shouldn’t pirate because, if you had intellectual property, you would not want it to be stolen. You should not commit adultery because if you were in a relationship, you would not want your partner to cheat on you. If a god can not die at all, then telling a god that killing is bad because they wouldn’t want to be killed simply isn’t going to be meaningful.
The definition of murder also doesn’t include a god killing another god.
which, nobody mentioned this far?.. you can’t make a claim and then attack it to justify your point. That is the definition of a strawman argument
If a god can not die at all, then telling a god that killing is bad because they wouldn’t want to be killed simply isn’t going to be meaningful.
So, according to you, this means an immortal god would not even understand why killing is bad? Sorry but I do not see the correlation here. Assuming your point for a moment, then none of the commandments hold any meaning to god since I cannot steal, harm or cheat an all-powerful entity.
The question whether god may understand or be bound by moral standards is irrelevant though. Apparently he doesn’t act on it. Either he doesn’t care enough to do or he can’t.
Of course one can imagine god in a way that’s compatible with our world - for example an evil god, a god that doesn’t care about humans, a god that has no relationship with the world, or a god that’s incapable of interference with it. Epicurus doesn’t say god doesn’t exist, merely the (formerly prevalent) idea of an all loving, all knowing, omnipotent creator god. That one is apparently impossible and therefore most likely doesn’t exist.
And going one step further we can say: Well okay, maybe god doesn’t exist, but apparently not in a way that’s relevant to this world. At least not beyond the idea itself. There is no tangible influence of god in this life - he doesn’t interfer (for whatever reason). And since the formerly prevalent idea of god is obviously wrong it’s hard to say if humans were ever justified in thinking we know something about god at all. (Would be a feat anyway, giving the fact that god apparently doesn’t interfer with our reality.) This however leaves very little room to justify or explain the need for religion.
When I was a believer this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I understood that we know nothing of god, cannot know anything of god, and cannot claim to say he does exist - and that religion therefore made no sense. Back then I called myself an agnostic, taking into account the possibility that, as unlikely as it might me, god could yet exist in some form. Today I don’t even believe that. The term “god” stems from a tradition of groundless and increasingly refuted attributions, and there’s just as much reason to assume the existence of such a concept as every other work of fiction out there. If you’d experience the world without the predenomination of religion you wouldn’t arrive at anything close to their idea of a god in the first place. This was my conclusion from the Epicurean paradox.
So, n=2, now we have a tie.
(Exercise like this might feel futile to you - I find them immensely interesting.)
Yes, this. This supposes that either:
A. There is the existence good and evil that supersedes the authority of God ( which means God cannot be sovereign over morality )
B. I define good and evil and then judge “god” based on my definition ( which from a moral standpoint would actually make me god )
I suspect that this really isn’t a paradox for most people because they either:
A. Look at the world and see horrible things they don’t like and then want to judge God for them ( with what authority ? )
B. They don’t believe in God to begin with but like to use this chart to re-enforce their belief that they are logically correct.
A God that literally defines good and evil by his existence ( I AM ) breaks this chart.
see horrible things they don’t like and then want to judge God for them
I wonder if there are things you’d judge god for. Is there suffering so great that you would ask “how can he let that happen”? Or is your god compatible with even the worst realities imaginable?
If the former, all we’re debating is if the suffering prevalent in our world is great enough to justify the question. And I’d personally argue if you’re not entirely ignorant to the suffering of your fellow human beings it definitely is.
If the latter, the categories of “good” and “bad” become completely meaningless. The term “god” becomes meaningless. At this point there’s no connection between our reality and whatever idea we might have of a divine power, since the two do not interfere. He is just an idea with no tangible effect on this world, I am irrelevant to him, he is irrelevant to me. The question of his existence becomes pointless.
I wonder if there are things you’d judge god for.
I often catch myself trying to do just that, and I have to humble myself and remember that I don’t even have the authority to judge other humans let alone God. It is my observation that human beings are incredibly arrogant, myself included. We are tiny specks of dust on a tiny planet that we have barely explored outside of, and we want to declare ourselves masters of the universe and holders of truth. This is a characteristic that I have observed in myself and in others that I believe goes all the way back to the temptation in Genesis 3: “ye shall be as gods”. It is in my nature to want to call the shots and decide what is right and wrong and I see myself unconsciously try to slide into that mindset on a regular basis.
Is there suffering so great that you would ask “how can he let that happen”?
This is a separate question. There is a big difference between judging God in my heart and deciding that He is wrong for allowing the suffering I am experiencing or observing, and asking why he is allowing it; Asking: “how can you let things like this happen?” “This seems to be against what I understand your nature to be?” “How can you be who you say you are and allow this?” is very different from saying, “You are wrong and I hate you for it.”. The former are genuine questions spurred by a conflict between what I understand about his nature and what I perceive from my experience. The entire book of Job revolves around these very questions and offers some interesting insights.
Or is your god compatible with even the worst realities imaginable?
God isn’t my god. He isn’t whatever I want him to be, if that were the case, I would never find myself in conflict with him. He is what he is. He is I AM.
Asking: “how can you let things like this happen?” “This seems to be against what I understand your nature to be?” “How can you be who you say you are and allow this?” is very different from saying, “You are wrong and I hate you for it.”.
The Epicurean paradox asks neither. It asks: Wait a minute - if what I think to know about you makes no sense given my reality, how can what I know about you be true?
God isn’t my god. He isn’t whatever I want him to be, if that were the case, I would never find myself in conflict with him. He is what he is. He is I AM.
If god is indeed compatible with even the worst realities imaginable, what reason do we have to believe in him in the first place? His existence (or non existence) doesn’t seem to make any difference then. Of course I understand that if you simply believe he exists nothing will ever convince you otherwise (and I wouldn’t want to convince you either), but coming from my perspective (someone who once was christian, is today atheist) this means that god has no explanatory value whatsoever. Even if he existed, I wouldn’t have to (and indeed don’t) care for him. Even if he existed, his idea of what’s wrong and what’s right apparently has nothing to do with what I think. He could just as well be an immortal alien on mars counting the grains of sand, because that’s what he deems good, and he’d be equally relevant to me. If we cannot know anything about him, there’s no reason to assume anything either. Then he is, in all effect, nothing.
From a religious perspective: Sure, logic will never disprove your faith, I get that. But in any other case, unless we start the thinking exercise on the premise that god exists, all the logical indicators point to the opposite.
A God that literally defines good and evil by his existence ( I AM ) breaks this chart.
Pretending the epicurean paradox is about the existence of god is a strawman
The entire thing is about the qualities in the character of god. Is god all knowing, all powerful and all god as he is sold to us by the Church?
Also, an even bigger strawman and circular logic to boot is your argument about being unable to “judge” god (or the expectation of his behaviour)
The concept of judging you are using seems to be that or passing sentencing. Anyone can evaluate with simple logic without being a figure of authority.
If I see a person kicking a freightened dog, I don’t need to be any authority over that person to reach the conclusion, aka “judge”, they are doing something wrong
Seem confusing?
That’s right - because anything that’s made up and subject to interpretation IS!
More like our very existence as sentient, conscious creatures on a rock orbiting a star in the vast emptiness of space contained in a umiverse doesn’t make sense in the first place, so any attempt to explain it would barely make sense anyway.
And even if it does not make sense, here we are. We ourself are the proof that things are not true or false just on the basis of our understanding of those same things.
What if an almighty God created the universe without evil but with free-will, and then one angel decided to challange the way God rule, so that God has to let him rule to show everyone whose way of rule is the best?
Simply killing that angel would not answer the challenge, on the contrary, killing that angel would demonstrate that God is a dictator.
As if the christian God had a problem with killing, considering they are a mass murderer compared to their angel.
Furthermore, why did they create an angel which became “evil” in the first place? This brings us right back to the Epicurean paradox.
One of the funniest things humanity has done is to invent the concept of God as a super entity and then reduce him/them/it to their level.
Why would a super entity be bound by “love” which only humans understand ? Why would “it” have the concept of “evil”, something that humans invented out of fear.
As a species we just need to accept we are just stupid.
Why would a super entity be bound by “love” which only humans understand ? Why would “it” have the concept of “evil”, something that humans invented out of fear.
It doesn’t. That’s the point. The Epicurean paradox doesn’t say god doesn’t exist in some way or form, but the idea of god as someone with a relationship to humanity based on love, omnipotence and omniscience (in any way that’s meaningful to us) is apparently false.
Or from your perspective: God loves us in his way; he doesn’t love us in our way, which means we can’t expect the same mercy, the same support, the same commitment from him as we humans are capable of.
Epicurus refuted one very specific idea of god, which was prevalent at one point in time, but is today only believed by very devout evangelicals. What we today conclude from the fact that apparently no god will alleviate the suffering in this life is up to each individual.
And that is why religion is effectively meaningless. We have invented a being full of contradictions, much like ourselves, but declared [it|whatever] perfect besides that. The answer to the paradox is that there is no God.
People should learn to strive for good without the threat of eternal punishment from a being of their invention, otherwise those individuals were never good to begin with, and their imaginary all powerful, all knowing and judgemental god would punish them regardless.
Define “good”.
As a species we just need to accept we are just stupid.
Or in the words of Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.”
Or in the words of (possibly or possibly not) Einstein: “Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”I agree. It is better not to assume anything and take it for a truth, but to find the truth through reliable and provable methods.
“why can’t god create a boulder so heavy that even the can’t carry it?” even as a child trying to trick god with basic paradoxes sounded funny to me.
The existence of those paradoxes could also mean that omnipotence in itself is simply impossible.
Or logic is a blasphemy against god.
Then why would god create our minds and logic in the first place? Seems like he’d be setting us up for failure if he gives us tools to determine the truth which in turn seem to disprove his existence. Also not something you’d expect from an all-loving deity.
If the story of the garden of Eden is anything to go by I’d say that the creator definitely both made those things and very clearly instructed us not to use them. Either way if logic itself is evil then any logical argument cannot possibly apply to a purely good being.
Of course I’m in camp snake, I’m just playing divinity’s advocate.
I think it’s a fair assumption, it just would made god a psychopath.
Logic presupposes God. If God operates outside of time he can certainly operate outside of other frameworks we use to perceive the world. The human brain can fit in a bucket. Naturally understanding God is an impossibility.
The epicurian paradox presupposes false premises.
I once heard omnipotent doesn’t mean they can overturn logic itself, which seems a little unintuitve to me, but hey why not.
Being unbound by logic / information theory would make it impossible to reason about anything at all
Thereby implying that everything becomes meaningless and there is no point in believing anything.
Maybe Satan is also all-powerful, and each time they fight it’s a coin toss. Unstoppable force meets unmovable object.
Assuming that Christianity is even slightly based in fact and that entities like God and Satan actually exist.
But if Satan is all powerful then God is not, as God could not hold power over Satan.
That’s what I’m saying, like there’s a constant battle between two forces of equal (infinite) power. But it’s not constant or continuous, so at times one “wins” over the other in discrete circumstances.
Imagine if you were omnipotent but still needed to consciously invoke your power every time in order to do anything with it. You might lose some of your battles, though that doesn’t really jive with the Christian concept of God’s power.
I am intentionally mythologizing and playing loose with existing canon because this is an unanswerable philosophical question and I am a silly little goose.
But if god is omnipotent then satan is not, as satan could not hold power over god.
My understanding is that God is big on free will, including for the angels. Angel wants to fall and be the lord of darkness? Whatever, go for it.
My own interpretation of God and Satan, which is highly limited by what I learned about the Bible when I was a kid — and thus may be extremely incorrect — is that Satan viewed God’s “requirements” of being “good” to gain eternal life in heaven to be paradoxical to free will. Following God means not making decisions for yourself. So Satan represents the rebel, the true free will, with no regard to God’s plan or will.
But there’s a trick, I think: choose to follow the path of “good.” Don’t follow God’s plan because you have to but because you want to.
This resolves the problem and Satan can go back to being “good.”
I view this all symbolically and as a metaphor for how each of us confront and balance our individuality and selfish interests with harmony and collective good.
Just being the devil advocate here: I disagree with the “destroy Satan” part, Satan isn’t the definition of evil, he is only the HR department that deal with the evil people, and the part of God not stopping evil, maybe he don’t because it go against free will? About the not loving, he promises a perfect infinity world after all of this, after a few centuries of perfection you don’t care/remember I guess
Good advocate. Anyway, “God not stopping evil, maybe he don’t because it go against free will” - That enters the loop at the bottom. Could God create a universe where free will exists, but evil does not exist? If yes, then why didn’t He? If He could not create such a universe, then he’s not all powerful and/or not all loving and good.
“About the not loving, he promises a perfect infinity world after all of this” - Then why do we have to go through this initial, temporary and imperfect part?
Maybe free will requires the infinite complexity of this world and hence must also contain “evil” in some way.
Then god is not all powerful
That’s trying to sidestep the answer, but it just loops back: could God create an “infinitely complex” world with free will where evil does not need to exist? I’m effectively asking the same question, “could God create a universe with free will and without evil”?
Assuming that your assertion is true, that the infinite complexity of this world must contain evil, then God is not all powerful nor all loving.
I dunno. To be all powerful does God need to be able to create paradoxes? Things that are and aren’t? I think that by limiting choices, free will is no longer fully free.
The all loving part I think gets resolved by the free will idea, too — he’s not going to step in and be a nanny.
I’m not really advocating for some biblical God, btw. Though, admittedly, I am spiritual in different senses which might overlap with the biblical God in some ways.
To be all powerful does God need to be able to create paradoxes?
To be all powerful means you literally create all the rules, including any that might lead to paradoxes, or being able to create a set of rules that lead to no paradoxes, ever.
The all loving part I think gets resolved by the free will idea, too — he’s not going to step in and be a nanny.
Again, he creates the rules, the “state machine”. If we humans can reach a “failed” (evil) state, it’s only because it’s an option that has been created.
Also, free will automatically breaks either god’s omniscience (and omnipotence) or being all-loving. If god knows everything that will ever happen, free will cannot exist except as an illusion, for everything is already predetermined. If free will exists, well, then we can safely imply that god is not all powerful, for god cannot predict our decisions.
Choices are already limited… by our brains. Some people choose to stick objects up their urethra. Based on statistical probability, I would guess you do not. Does the fact that your brain limits you from making that choice mean your will is not free? You didn’t choose which brain you would get. Or are you going to go stick something up there to prove how free you are?
Don’t appreciate (i) your disgusting example and (ii) your attitude. Most of this is obviously amounting to different interpretations of “free will” and even “omnipotence.” Ok, if it’s free with no limitations, you win, buddy. If it’s free will in the sense that, well, obviously, there are constraints, but it is precisely those constraints that give rise to different wants, desires, actions, and pursuits, and there is freedom to choose them, then ok, there might be free will. In any case, free will is vague and not precisely defined. Similarly, does omnipotence entail the ability of creating something outside of yourself? If no, then ok, the paradox stands. If not, then the paradox doesn’t.
Then in paradise there won’t be free will either, or evil will prevail there as well.
Literally advocating for the devil.
Kind of falls apart if rejecting the idea of objective good and evil and interpreting the parable of the fruit of knowledge in Eden as the inheritance of a relative knowledge of good and evil for oneself which inherently makes any shared consensus utopia an impossibility.
In general, we have very bizarre constraints on what we imagine for the divine, such as it always being a dominant personality.
Is God allowed to be a sub? Where’s the world religion built around that idea?
What about the notion that the variety of life is not a test for us to pass/fail, but more like a Rorsarch test where it allows us to determine for ourselves what is good or not?
Yes, antiquated inflexible ideas don’t hold up well to scrutiny. But adopting those as the only idea to contrast with equally inflexible consideration just seems like a waste of time for everyone involved, no?
I’ve always thought the better argument was to replace ‘good and evil’ with ‘happiness and sadness’. Everything you said makes sense because good and evil are subjective, but at least everyone agrees that happiness is a goal in itself that we all strive for, regardless of what it takes to get you there personally.
If you go through this chart and use the word ‘happiness’ instead, it becomes pretty clear that god is not omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent, or we would only ever feel happiness.
evil exists -> no
Honestly that’s probably the only way out of the problem of evil.
That said you are on a path of ethical relativism, and from a practical standpoint it’s fucked up beyond belief.
Also so much of religion is founded on the good/ evil dynamic that if this was removed, everything else would crumble.
