Is God Responsible For The Evil In The World? No He Is Not.

I was thinking more of how communism kept the ethnic and religious tensions under control in places like Yugoslavia (I am not advocating communism in anyway, it is just a fact that it stopped war in eastern Europe) It is easy to forget the bitter and vicious wars in Europe in the 90s. I disagree that mankind it taught a lesson by war, the majority have always understood war is a very bad idea it is only the ruling elite that see war as a necessary evil. Most wars have actually used religion to drive normal people to go to war even Stalin opened up the churches to help the war effort in WW2! Religion was used extensively in WW1 to encourage people to fight. In Northern Ireland which was Europes longest war in the 20th century the forces split almost completely along religious lines.

I understand your idea but surely any god would make it clear do not fight in my name?

 

I agree, there’s no evidence that the concept “sky pappy” exists.

That has nothing to with God however.

 

Sorry but your rose colored glasses ( and seriously flawed view of history) are no proof that evil doesn't exist or that torturing, raping and murdering children is a GOOD THING...which you seem to imply it is...it's what ? Character building?

How assinine to think that way...

 

That sounds like you think "doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

What horrible thing have you done to your children to help them improve themselves?

 

Feel free to play mind games with yourself … like all other believers...

 

No, I don't think doing horrible things is a good thing. In fact my point is that we should strive to eliminate them. That is what makes us better, stronger people. The world is better off with a bit of adversity. Very evil things should be allowed by God because they are the result of human failings, and humans are better off overcoming those failings.

One "horrible" thing I did to my child was sleep training. Many babies are unable to get to sleep on their own and feel terrified and abandoned if they are left alone in a room to sleep. So some parents have to spend a half-hour every time soothing their babies to sleep or getting them back to sleep if they wake up. When the baby reaches a half year old, you can actually sleep train her. You let her cry for short increments, and the baby eventually develops the ability to self soothe and will learn to fall asleep on her own more quickly.

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
That sounds like you think "doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

What horrible thing have you done to your children to help them improve themselves?

And in the next sentences you contradict yourself !!!

OMG, you think sleep training children is "horrible". !!!

Some people beat and torture children. THAT is horrible.. HOW is that helping the children? ANSWER.

I think only blindness to what people have suffered, and ARE suffering, would get anyone to think that way.

Bet you haven't looked up what children go threw when they're sold as sex slaves....it ain't "sleep training".

FoxHastings said: ↑
That sounds like you think "doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

 

I'll admit that I haven't been very good at using the right words. So here is my opinion, carefully worded. The holocaust isn't good, but there is a slight positive side to all bad things if you look for it. God allowed the holocaust because if he had stopped it, our world would have remained one in which these type of things happen, and is only prevented by force. Because it is allowed it, we suffered the horrific consequences, and became the type of world where that doesn't happen at that scale anymore. For less horrific negative things, they are an absolutely necessary part of life because you can't grow without some kind of adversity.

 

You demand a reality where their is no up or down, in or out or left or right.

A world without opposites.

Good luck with that fantasy.

 

You seem to have a very limited knowledge of history and what is going on in the world today.


You carefully avoided the questions:

FoxHastings said: ↑
That sounds like you think "doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

What horrible thing have you done to your children to help them improve themselves?

And in the next sentences you contradict yourself !!!

OMG, you think sleep training children is "horrible". !!!

Some people beat and torture children. THAT is horrible.. HOW is that helping the children? ANSWER.

I think only blindness to what people have suffered, and ARE suffering, would get anyone to think that way.

Bet you haven't looked up what children go threw when they're sold as sex slaves....it ain't "sleep training".

And it is going on on a BIG SCALE and is going on TODAY.

You still insist that
"doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
Oh Baloney!

He allegedly created a world....he should've been able to create a world where humans were happy and comfortable....I'm sure we would've appreciated life without seeing children raped and tortured and humans shoved into gas chambers and cities wiped out in floods and fire and people starving...many of whom were good decent people...

WTF did I "demand" ? Nothing.

If one believes in a god they are living a fantasy

 

My point is that if God doesn't prevent us from doing horrible things to children so we as a society can learn to eliminate it ourselves. It is better for God to allow evil things, than to force us to always be good, and never have to defeat evil ourselves. Obviously doing unthinkable things to children is very damaging to them. As a result of the holocaust, we have become a lot more vigilant to fight and prevent genocide and also fight to root out racism. We became better people and evolving to be a society where genocide is a thing of the past.

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
You seem to have a very limited knowledge of history and what is going on in the world today.


You carefully avoided the questions:

FoxHastings said: ↑
That sounds like you think "doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

What horrible thing have you done to your children to help them improve themselves?

And in the next sentences you contradict yourself !!!

OMG, you think sleep training children is "horrible". !!!

Some people beat and torture children. THAT is horrible.. HOW is that helping the children? NO ANSWER.

I think only blindness to what people have suffered, and ARE suffering, would get anyone to think that way.

Bet you haven't looked up what children go threw when they're sold as sex slaves....it ain't "sleep training".

And it is going on on a BIG SCALE and is going on TODAY.

You still insist that
"doing horrible things to each other " is a good thing!!

You seem to have a very limited knowledge of history and what is going on in the world today.


You seem to think that the Holocaust was the only bad thing that ever happened and that nothing bad is happening now because the Holocaust is over !!

...If one thinks that way one would be quite ignorant.


You seem to be making excuses for torturing children .


You seem to not notice that people harming other people for thousands of years has not stopped people from harming other people,
It WAS NOT A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Again, I feel as if you have no knowledge of human history at all..


And again, it's weird to want a creator who made products that were capable of such atrocities, but , hey, you worship who you like

 

Which version of the Bible, which language, which translation, and which included books?

 

In the interest of civil philosophical debate, I would like to ask you a couple of questions. The ideas you present here are the classic formulations to the problem of evil, but it should be noted that Plantinga's free will defense was utilized specifically in light of Mackie's logical problem of evil (as is mentioned in the beginning of the Wiki article you cited). While the article gives a rudimentary explanation of Mackie's concern, the presentation there lacks a sophisticated presentation of his main argument. Just to set the stage for this discussion, allow me to summarize the context so that Plantinga's concerns can be properly explored. Mackie claims that free will defenses rest on qualifications of omnipotence that undermine the concept of what all-powerful means. By this Mackie presumes omnipotence to be absolute in nature, meaning that anything (even the inconceivable - e.g. law of non-contradiction) is possible (or could be actualized) for an omnipotent being. Accordingly, he then suggests that theodicies which highlight soul-making or best possible worlds commit themselves to a divine being who is less than perfect since they presuppose necessary limitations. Hence, his critique of free will follows in a similar light: the invoking of free will necessarily entails a limitation in God's power. So he proposes a new formulation in which individuals are created to always freely choose what is morally best (i.e. why couldn't we have been created with better/perfect moral natures?). This is devastating to someone like Leibniz whose response to whether or not God can sin (the paradox of whether a perfect being has the power to become less than perfect) is resolved by saying that God always wills himself (by his perfectly moral nature) to not sin. But Plantinga challenges both formulations of power. He presents a libertarian (metaphysical) view that argues that meaningful freedom is defined by the ability to do otherwise (and that meaningful freedom is itself morally significant). If it is impossible for a perfect being to sin, then it is not possible for God to choose this (hence God would lack the freedom to sin). In making this argument, Plantinga avoids the paradoxes of absolute omnipotence, by understanding omnipotence in terms of what is logically possible. This is a rather standard approach to avoid paradoxes such as, "can God create a rock to heavy for God to lift?" - since the idea that what is meant by omnipotence here means only what is maximally (logically) possible. Once Plantinga defines omnipotence in this way, he then presents a modal argument to show that there cannot be any logically possible worlds in which we are completely determined to act and still retain morally significant free will. Is it possible to have free will and exist in a world that doesn't have evil? Yes, he argues; but the responsibility lies in the free choices of the beings who inhabit these worlds. Hence, the responsibility for evil in our world lies in the choices of human beings.

Now there are a couple of concerns here.

Question(s) 1: Is this consistent with other claims made with the Christian tradition that Plantinga subscribes to? For example, what about heaven? Does one have free will in heaven? Can one suffer or do evil while in heaven? Is heaven better than physical life on Earth? If heaven is better than Earth, and one cannot do evil in heaven (lack freedom), then why is free will morally significant on Earth?

Question 2: Is Plantinga's argument the best account given empirical evidence? The more significant challenge (to my mind) comes from the evidential problem of evil, most significantly presented by William Rowe. The argument is as follows:

• Premise 1: There exist instances of surplus suffering (i.e. suffering that is not related to promoting some greater good or preventing some greater evil).
• Premise 2: A perfect god would prevent instances of surplus suffering.
• Conclusion: A perfect god does not exist

The logical form of this argument is deductively valid. The question is: is it sound (i.e. are the premises true)? Well, presumably, one would not want to challenge the second premise because then the meaning of moral perfection would be in doubt. So the question falls to the first premise. Rowe presents the example of animal suffering here. Imagine a fawn that is burned in a forest fire caused by a lightning strike. The fawn suffers excruciating pain for three days and dies. No human ever discovers this unfortunate event. This, then, is an instance of surplus suffering (the fawn's suffering contributes nothing to some greater good or prevention of some evil), so Premise 1 is true (keep in mind that animal suffering like this has happened an incalculable amount of times - well before human beings emerged on the scene). Rowe argues that Plantinga's free will defense (which is concerned with the logical problem of evil) fails here since human free will is irrelevant to the plight of the fawn. According to Rowe, what position has the weight of reason/evidence behind it? That an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god does not exist.​

 

An all powerful being that sees horrible things happening, yet does nothing, is Evil. That is unless you believe (for example) little children deserve to die of thirst or starvation because 5-6 Thousand years ago some woman ate an apple at the direction of a talking snake.

 

Exactly, JET

Even if there was undeniable proof that this alleged all-powerful god exists, I'd be more apt to want to punch it in the face (assuming, of course, that it has a face) than to grovel at its feet (assuming, of course, it has feet)...

 

This above an apology for the irrational.

If God wanted to create a being that did nothing but worship God and sing God's praises all day long - he could have easily done that.
The fact of the matter is God did not do this. God created a being with the ability to do evil - thus - God created evil.

 

there is no evidence that which ever god you believe in exists.

 

Adorno,
Some Miscellaneous Points:
{1) Thank you for taking the time to write that.
{2} I think your post up there was very well written.
{3} I read it 2 times carefully.
{4} I do not now have an intelligent reply to the questions you raised.
{5} I may never have an intelligent reply to what you presented.
{6} I had never come across William Rowe prior to reading your post.
{7} I did some research and I found "The Problem Of Evil: A Response To William Rowe."
{8} The paper specifically addresses "the fawn" issue and other issues.
{9} Here is the link: https://seizeeternity.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/the-problem-of-evila-response-to-william-rowe/
{10} I post the link for you ONLY because you might find the paper personally interesting.
{11} I do NOT post the link as a rebuttal to your post up there. I never present "Go Read" as an argument.
{12} I managed to read most of the paper at the link -- the print is small and my eyes are not all that good these days.
{13} I am not a philosopher even though I did find Planting's response to Epicurus {and to Mackie} to be very interesting.
{14} I live by faith. I am a Christian. Christianity is a faith. Christianity is not an intellectual system. So?
{15} So regarding William Rowe's argument, I may have to rest upon Deuteronomy 29:29 to the end of my days.

 

So what? It doesn’t make the slightest difference.

 

I appreciate your response. Thank you for the link - I will spend some time looking it over. This is the type of response that I believe represents the best of forums like this. A civil exchange of ideas with the purpose of exploring ideas in a substantive fashion. And even when there is disagreement, there is, nonetheless, a good faith effort to understand what each is saying and hold to the possibility that the other might have knowledge from which we can learn. Such is the height of the philosophical impulse.

 

You produce your version of God. Your version of god is different than another Islamic faiths version of god.
Your version of god is different than every christian or jew version of god. Yet it's the same god.
Everyone has their personal version of god, to fit their life view.

 

God created evil.
He created all things. The bible, his inspired word, says so.

 

Suppose you have been invited to your next door neighbor's picnic in which a game of horse shoes is in progress. Let's say you become aware that the impact from the toss is ripping up some of the turf and is starting to devastate part of a colony of tiny ants, killing and maiming a number of them and their babies (larva, eggs, etc.). Yet you stand by and do nothing to halt continuation of the harm being done to the ants. From the ants' perspective, you sure are Evil.