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Well that’s just because God works in mysterious ways you lil silly Billy.
Here’s your answer.
You know what they say, the best way to make someone an atheist is to make them actually read the Bible from front to back.
I have a friend who was a serious muslim so she started reading the quran and then relized at the age of 8 that the whole thing is bs so she stopped believing. Its funny because there are a bunch of people who tell her how shes disrespecting her ancestors and she should at least read a bit into it. She probably knows more about it than 90% of the people telling her about it.
I was also ashamed to find out, there is no tradition! Religion shifts focus and meaning constantly and usually as a reaction. The religion I was born in now says it’s ALWAYS been against trans people, and point to the written beliefs that came out of being anti feminism the last few decades and recontextalize it to fit their priorities now. I’m old enough that this lie is obvious and stupid. But this has always been the process. It’s been new age reframing old age material into current beliefs that not only have no logical connection to any doctorine or belief, but often defy the very principals they claim to extole. It’s always been people poorly copy and pasting popular opinions and priorities over actual historical beliefs.
Just understanding the historical facts and what the very religion that produced it holds as fact and fiction, because it’s not even intended to be factual vs. A bed time story, will make most people realize either their religion is made by fools and liars, or they need to adapt a very symbolic kind of faith.
Can they slip the geniologies? They’re just there to prove the guy in the story is really truly the descendant of someone holy and important, so add nothing if you just presume the protagonist is a proper protagonist
Wow people from thousands of years ago were people from thousands of years ago. Checkmate, everyone. I am so smart.
Ask your next zealous Christ/Jew/Islamist if he thinks his holy book is out of date.
Most Christians now accept female priests, gay marriages, fires on Saturday and clothes with mixed fibres. How would they do this without accepting that the book is outdated?
It sounds like they are picking and choosing what to believe and follow, based on their own preferences. If that is the case, they’ll believe whatever they think benefits them, even if it is at the expense of others.
We have seen this play out with christians against gay people. Now we are seeing it play out against trans people, even though the bible says nothing about trans people. The bible does say to love thy neighbor as thyself though, to judge not lest ye be judged, and to leave judgment to god.
Picking and choosing only the parts people like makes them hypocrites. Picking and choosing only the parts people think are “good” makes the bible essentially worthless to follow and base one’s life on.
They are indeed picking and choosing. However, I’m just contesting the poster above claiming that believers would deny the book being outdated. It’s more like a “you have to interpret the core message of love thy neighbor… And sometimes hate the neighbours we specifically don’t like” kind of thing these days.
You might have heard of a group called Christians. They have a lot people there who think this is a devine rulebook and everybody must follow it.
Eh, it’s not like they actually follow the bible, nor do they follow Jesus’ teachings. They follow whatever their pastor tells them to follow.
The Bible wasn’t even written thousands of years ago. Bit if it were but lots of it was rewritten and indeed rerewritten by the church over its history, so their revised version. The one they think takes out some of the less acceptable bits.
Okay let’s say 500 years ago. Misogyny, slavery and rape were basically just everyday stuff.
Right, but that’s the word of god for some people, not the word of the everyday man.
This is sorta the beginners philosophy question. There are plenty of answers, it’s not the “gotcha” it appears to be. Those answers unroll into all sorts of branching other conversations but they exist.
Maybe it’s because free will exists.
Maybe there’s a greater purpose for what we call “evil” that results in more good.
Maybe it’s a definitional thing, where “evil” to us is always going to be the most-evil existent thing so if existing evils were gone “evil” would still exist but it would consist of aggressive kitten licks or something. So “evil” can’t not exist, but it’s not because God can’t get rid of what we call “evil” now.
Maybe there’s a greater purpose for what we call “evil” that results in more good.
A work of fiction I very much enjoy called UNSONG uses a variant of this as the answer to the question of evil. The basic notion being that at the level of abstraction that God operates at two identical things are essentially one thing and so in order to maximize the total net good he creates universe upon universe, all slightly different but each ultimately resulting in more good than bad in net. The universe the story takes place in is recognizably similar to ours until the Nixon administration, and it is explicitly said to be “far from the center of the garden”. IOW in a region of possibility space in which few potential universes are good on net.
The story is also an absolute master class in foreshadowing to the point that if you just listen as the story repeatedly tells you how one should interpret text, you can derive the ending from like the first paragraph of chapter 1 by just digging deep enough. And it goes a lot deeper than that. It’s not just an aesthetic choice that every chapter name is a Blake reference, or that the story is arranged into groupings of four, ten, twenty two and seventy two. It also manages to analogize itself to both the works of William Blake and the song American Pie because why not?
Is Scott Alexander a dickhead like Yudkowsky?
I’d be shocked if he wasn’t, depending on one’s definition of dickhead. Everyone is a dickhead for some definition of dickhead.
UNSONG is still a great fantasy story and a master class in foreshadowing, regardless of how one feels about the author.
Maybe it’s because free will exists.
Then God shouldn’t have given it to us, still his fault, OP still applies
Maybe there’s a greater purpose for what we call “evil” that results in more good.
Then God should have given us the understanding of it so we’re not left to question him, OP still applies
Maybe it’s a definitional thing, where “evil” to us is always going to be the most-evil existent thing so if existing evils were gone “evil” would still exist but it would consist of aggressive kitten licks or something. So “evil” can’t not exist, but it’s not because God can’t get rid of what we call “evil” now.
Shitty point, we have a clear definition of what these evils are currently and yet nothing is done about them. Maybe if we somehow lived in a world that no longer had the evils we see today you’d have a point but this is just a silly one
But free will cannot exist with an omniscient god, because if he knows everything, then everything is predetermined, giving us no free will and also making god evil for allowing all the suffering to happen. And if free will does exist god isnt omniscient
According to the Bible, God never gave man free will. He only gave us the free will to accept the knowledge of actions. However, it reads more like how you would think of a child as innocent – humans didn’t know what was good or bad. Of course, the Garden of Eden was never real and the story was just a story.
However, the Bible also states that the reason we have free will is because love and good aren’t forced. You can’t love someone or perform a good deed if those are your only options. You have to choose to do so. The angels also had free will which is what led to Lucifer and his followers.
I’m not religious anymore, but my parents are still super Catholic. My dad taught Sunday school growing up and still works for a church while my mom is a teacher at a Catholic high school.
Without free will, true worship cannot exist. (If God is God, he certainly has the right to create us for the sole purpose of worshipping him.)
To your latter points, I agree that we know clearly what evil (a.k.a sin) is—sin is anything apart from God’s character (e.g. the fruit of the spirit to start).
However, it’s not up to us to “get rid” of evil, that’s on God, and that’s exactly what he did when he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross as a substitute for the punishment we deserve, and when he rose from the grave he signified that substitution was complete. If we truly accept that fact, then God considers us saved (“redeemed”). And, one day Jesus will come back and eliminate evil once and for all.
As to why God allowed evil to enter the world in the first place, well, that’s one of the cornerstone discussions of Christian theology, I can’t easily summarize that here. In short, a redeemed world can know God’s love and worship him more deeply than a world which was never fallen to begin with. (And again, if God is God, he absolutely has the right to create us—and all of creation—for the sole purpose of bringing him glory.) Here’s an excellent article that explains this more fully.
Do you believe all this, and if so, why?
What annoying when people who have no grasp of what philosophy about starting saying these statement and expect me to answer them.
Edit: reading the comment is also annoying. When someone mention God, many assume the statement reference their own religion and draw conclusion based on it. I had someone start talking about god doesnt exist because “the proofs” are wrong, but these proofs all driven from his own religion. ( ex christian talking about statement that doesnt make sense in the bible) when I attempt to speak on higher level ( forgot all religions lets talk about god as an entity or thought ) they kept circling around to same points.
Many people dont know how to debate or what they are debating.
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An omnipotent being would be able to setup the universe in such a way that it could be done, anything less is just being very powerful. Its only really a problem for monotheistic religions, most with pantheons portray their gods as very powerful but not all powerful.
sadfasfsadfd
Can god make a universe where a crooked straight line is both possible and impossible, where he both causes it to exist and also not exist?
Reading this thread is like watching a 4 year old figure out how to blow a bubble in milk and think it’s profound.
To get around this, ancient fuckers in my country invented reincarnation and karma. That conveniently also gave them the license to be supremely racist.
I don’t know though the Americans managed to be super racist while being Christian. They got around that one by just classifying anyone they didn’t like as not a real person.
Religion has always been the excuse, it’s never been a preventative.
I mean DUH, obviously it is impossible to have any objective morality without appealling to my own personal, internally inconsistently defined God whose written word I am certainly interpreting correctly after being filtered through tens of thousands of writers and editors and translators through thousands of years, whose objectivity morality also ‘works in mysterious ways’ whenever it seems contradictory!
Its simple!
Who are you to challenge God’s word?
Who are you to challenge God’s word
* points to a book written and edited by humans
(Not arguing with you, just showing my amusement at standard Christian bullshit)
Nuh-uhhh, it’s the WoRD oF GoD
Which god was he talking about anyway ? They had thousands of the fuckers at the time.
A more general tri-omni god
This was a guy who assumed the existence of Platonic solids. He clearly had a streak of monotheism in him.
Disgusting. I hope they threw him off a cliff.
Or maybe he’s just a cunt, what with all the murdering people.
I know this is a circle-jerk meme, but I’mma pitch my two cents anyway.
If we are talking about the Abrahamic god… “he” is both good and evil. So no; to be omnipotent one must also be responsible for evil. Kinda duh.
I could go on, but that right there is pretty much all that needs to be said regarding that god in particular. Good and Evil are man-made concepts, and subjective as all hell.
If you’re going off the old testament God is a jealous, vindictive asshole. New testament was a very successful attempt to white wash this with all that “love they neighbour” bullshit.
The Bible is wild.
That whole vibe is pretty much what created Christian gnosticism. The “creator God” or the idiot demiurge actually is the evil god from the old testament that trapped your soul in an evil reality. The good God and Jesus are here to help you transcend it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaldabaoth
For those elder scrolls players who wanted to know what Lorkhan was about: here he is.
Then isn’t it wrong of the Abrahamic God to ask humans to do good if good is subjective anyway?
That’s a fun question!
But there is that pesky “good” and “evil”! “wrong” and “right” are the same thing.
Isn’t it evil of the Abrahamic God to ask humans to do good if good is subjective anyway? Well, yes xD
Good and Evil are man-made concepts, and subjective as all hell.
Gotta get all D&D True Neutral Druidic on this and recognize life as a cycle. The wolf eats the lamb, the lamb eats the grass, the grass eats the bodies of them both. What is good here? What is evil?
To eliminate “evil” one must do far worse things than murder. One must assert one’s will over the very foundations of nature itself.
Like ripping fruit from a tree.
Or calling it a tree
Where God is humanist principle, and God is a humanist, then circularly, principle exists without micromanaging intervention in perpetuity.
The old testament is extremely problematic. Israelite hasbara coup. Polytheistic relgion at the time was Canaanite. The descendants of Noah’s grandson. El was main god, that Israel is named after, and all other god’s were his offspring. Greek rule over the region, had Greeks say that all of the major Canaanite gods were the same as the Greek gods, with El as Zeus. Yahweh was the tribal god of Israelites. But it is basically very easy for any priest to invent a new god, based on narrower factional/fertility needs to collect revenue for rewarding the priest to champion your tribe/goals contrary to humanism.
The problems with old testament start with 10 commandments
There is no god before me (Yahweh), is a coup over El.
“Though shalt not covet/idolatrize” was an insurection cry over Canaanites where Yahweh orders the Israelites to destroy all idols of Canaanites instead of valuing their silver/gold content. El/God had no desire to repress worship, and their priests accepted offerings and sacrifices, so why not idolatry.
“Honour thy father/parents” codifies law at the time that gave parents the right to have the state execute their children for “dishonour”.
Just as all Churches today have as mission to maximize their power through alliance with state/authority/hierarchy, so have all religion through time. A cult is simply a religion without state approval. God exists without church corruption. Prayer has no measurable effect, but Abrahamic religions being rooted in a lie could be one explanation. Still, that evil exists, doesn’t imply that humanism/principle doesn’t exist, just that you individually have the power for evil, and tyranny/autocracy has power because you are deluded to allow/tolerate it, and evil happens from the greed and desperation it fosters. Evil exists because we are too collectively stupid and gullible to organize ourselves around evil.
https://www.naturalfinance.net/2022/11/the-invention-of-truth.html
If this were multiple choice, then I would go with #2.
Assuming Christianity and that the lore was real there’s more fundamental questions.
Can you perceive the universe accurately and fully? If good and evil exist, are you accurately observing them?
If this world is like an illusion and eternity will be in heaven or hell, what does it mean to do good or evil here on earth? You commit evil and it will propel you towards hell, the"real", while the people who suffer from your evil fare better here in the “illusion.” It’s like evil is when someone kills their own soul, and has less to do with the literal consequences here in this universe.
Related the the first question, what about the fact that their god is literally defined as good and is essentially an Eldritch being that exists within the very unfolding of history itself? Stepping into this lore and trying to trap this thing with a simple, elegant rhetorical cage is like… trying to catch Cthulhu with a cage.
If you guys pray to me, I promise to notice you and pay attention. Which is more than you can say for any god.
(You have to do it out loud and in front of me though.)
Kneeling bags my nylons.
If anyone actually cares, this is the muslim answer to how a good God can allow evil and why humanity was created with all its flaws
It’s an important question and worth taking the time to watch the video
It’s an important question
Only to the mentally ill who need cognitive dissonance to keep on keeping on
Can you expand on this? Honest question, not being rude
Religious people whose religion tells them their god is inherently good or benevolent and all-powerful (Abrahamic ones for example) feel a cognitive dissonance when they see that evil exists in the world, and thus have to discuss it with each other in order to figure out the best doublethink to maintain their religion
To those of us not trying to prop up a fundamentally self-contradictory belief system it’s not an important thing to think about _at all because our beliefs don’t require conflicting statements to be true
Quran 2:30 ˹Remember˺ when your Lord said to the angels, “I am going to place a successive ˹human˺ authority on earth.” They asked ˹Allah˺, “Will You place in it someone who will spread corruption there and shed blood while we glorify Your praises and proclaim Your holiness?” Allah responded, “I know what you do not know.”
No denial of evil here, I’d be curious to know your thoughts on the video I linked. Watch at least halfway
Able and willing are fine and dandy until you have free will to deal with. You can tell people the right way to be all day, but in the end you gotta come down and throw some bitches around like rag dolls. We all assume god has the ability to do whatever they want, but we never think they have rules they are forced to exist by. Rules that keep the very fabric of existence from unraveling. In short, if god is capable of being omnipresent, and omnipotent, then our ability to express free will is in danger because they could just force us to be whomever they choose, with how things are setup it makes a lot more sense gods a smoker, drinker, pissed off, and being forced to fix this shit manually while a ton of shit heads keep trying to force everything in the wrong direction. Gods an admin in a free will zone, and has specific abilities they can rely on to resolve issues, but it can take time like cleaning up the streets of rancid goulash vendors. But really, that implies we are all just visiting a zone, and once we leave it gods not god, just an admin in a zone we are no longer a part of.
No. Not all “evil” is caused by people, and not all bad things caused by people were done with that intention. There is a very large margin for “less evil”, where natural disasters could just not exist and people with good intentions get the information they need to not do something bad accidentally.
Yes, people often overlook that evil (in the form of suffering) exists in our world without free will as a cause when trying to respond to the problem of evil like this. Why would our world be designed to require suffering? And even if we were willing to concede that the ideal world should have some suffering, surely it should have less than this one, right?
Also, this response takes for granted that free will exists when most people in my experience concede that we live in a deterministic world. So if some version of free will exists that people nonetheless act predictably, and have their nature pre-determined rather than chosen, why would an omnipotent, all-knowing, benevolent god not choose a nature for them that would avoid inflicting suffering in their expression of free will? I haven’t found a good answer to these, if one is even possible.
Safety is that which protects but does not bind
Tyranny is that which binds but does not protect
Why not able and willing, but just doesn’t?
I’m willing to go for a walk today to burn a few calories. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna.
Wouldn’t that make you unwilling?
Not at all. Willing means that I want to do something. Unwilling means that I don’t want to do something.
Just because I want to do something, doesn’t mean I will do that thing.
I’m willing to sit here and continue editing this post with examples to further illustrate my point, but I have to go to work soon.
Edit: Oof. Now I remember why I refrained from starting a lemmy account for so long. Appreciate the refresher.
