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Homerun40968
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It is impossible to do so. But if you feel that you would like to try, let this be a friendly, academic/theological thread on the existence of God using scholarly works and/or universal principles.
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Starwynd
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Cajetan
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I’ll play Devil’s Advocate…
God is said by Jews, Christians, and Muslims to be omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-good). Yet, there is so much needless evil and suffering in the world. (1) If God is omnipotent, God could do something about all the needless evil and suffering in the world (He could stop it); (2) if God is omniscient, God knows about all the needless evil and suffering in the world (nothing goes unnoticed by God); and (3) if God is omnibenevolent, God would do something about all the needless evil and suffering in the world (He couldn’t help but try to stop it). Altogether, now, if God is all three of these things, then clearly needless evil and suffering would not happen. But since, again, there is so much needless evil and suffering in the world, then God as defined by Jews, Christians, and Muslims – the “monotheistic God” – does not exist.
What say you to that?
God is said by Jews, Christians, and Muslims to be omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-good). Yet, there is so much needless evil and suffering in the world. (1) If God is omnipotent, God could do something about all the needless evil and suffering in the world (He could stop it); (2) if God is omniscient, God knows about all the needless evil and suffering in the world (nothing goes unnoticed by God); and (3) if God is omnibenevolent, God would do something about all the needless evil and suffering in the world (He couldn’t help but try to stop it). Altogether, now, if God is all three of these things, then clearly needless evil and suffering would not happen. But since, again, there is so much needless evil and suffering in the world, then God as defined by Jews, Christians, and Muslims – the “monotheistic God” – does not exist.
What say you to that?
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Paladin_V
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First and foremost, He has done something about it. He took on our humanity and suffered and died at our hands, redeeming us and conquering evil.
There is another flaw here. Just because God is omnibenevolent, it does not mean that he must prevent every evil action. This would be a violation of our free will. Since love requires freedom, God must allow evil to happen.
Lastly, this argument does not consider that God takes evil and turns it around to serve His divine providence. All things ultimately work for the greater glory of God.
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Cajetan
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Appeal to faith. This appeal means nothing to atheists, whom are the ones who posit the problem of evil.
What is this “free will” you speak of, or the claim that “love” requires freedom, or that “God” must allow evil to happen? Many atheists have good reasons for not believing in free will or love, and the non-existence of God is what they’re arguing for in the first place. You make huge assumptions here, rooted in your religious beliefs, which atheists reject. (Keep it simple; don’t open yourself up to these so hastily.)
Again, this is an appeal to faith. It’s meaningless to an atheist.
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Starwynd
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Everything is meaningless to an atheist because they don’t know God.
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Benedictus
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Your God is not real.
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ParamountWonder
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of course, how can you prove the existence of an Entity that chooses to reveal himself on select few occasions and yet provide no hardcore truth of its existence? Thus is the reasoning of an atheist, one may sympathize but forgive them…
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srferdave
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The truth is there. The difference is an atheist chooses not to believe in it.
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Starwynd
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Atheists are not real.
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MarcellusW
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Isn’t the problem with most of the atheists claims(at least present day ones) against the existence of God is that they recognize only science as the way of knowing truth? Hence they are materialists?
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SeekingCatholic
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The argument is absolutely logically sound and compelling except for one thing, the classification of evil and suffering as “needless”. If needless suffering and evil does indeed exist, then indeed a wholly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist. Every argument can be shot to pieces, such as:
Paladin V:
But evil still exists, and existed. An omnipotent and omnibenevolent God would not have even allowed evil to come about in the first place.
No, it doesn’t. The “free will defense” is particularly languid from a philosophical point of view. God, being omnipotent and omniscient, could have chosen only to create those whom He knew would freely choose only good.
Yes, but God, being omnibenevolent, is supposed to be not only concerned with His own glory, but also our own good. If He is omnibenevolent He should be willing to sacrifice His glory for our behalf, if it should come to that.
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Miles_Militis
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I’m sorry but that’s just a dumb analogy. You’re going to have to do a lot better then that.
Why should anyone disprove God’s existence? The burden of proof is on you. To argue that people must disprove your case is fallacious. It is not up to me to prove that God does not exist, its up for you to prove He does.
All that is required for atheism to win is for Christianity to be silent.
The floor is yours. Prove God exists; I dare you.
That statement means about as much to an atheist as my morning **** did.
Come on people! One of the things that drives me nuts about Catholics is their inability to argue, if you believe it then learn to defend it!
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Paladin_V
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The argument “against” the existence of God that I was refuting was an argument based on statements about God.
It almost presupposes God, the existence of whom it is trying to disprove. The argument essentially says, if there was a God, He would not allow evil to happen, but evil does happen so there is no God. All that has to be done is show that the logic is faulty, namely, just because evil exists, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t.
I gave a few reasons why. The argument stated that if God existed, he would not allow evil because he is good. This is faulty because if God exists, he must allow evil, precisely because this would make him good (as I pointed out). This is not an appeal to faith but rather a statement that love requires freedom, or it is no longer love. Cold hard logic here. Since the atheist is pointing out goodness (essentially love), this is something that the atheist apparently understands.
The argument also states that God can’t exist because he hasn’t done something about evil. This sentences makes no sense, this is not a valid logical statement because it presupposes God.
Nevertheless, if the atheist says, “If God existed and was a loving God as you claim, He would do something about evil,” we can respond, “Well, we believe in God because we believe that something has been done about evil. Prove that something hasn’t been done.” Neither is an argument for or against God, true, but I did a least refute the statement. I suppose the argument then becomes, “Has or hasn’t something been done about evil?”
The kicker though, is how can the atheist talk about evil? What is his standard so that he can say, “this is evil and this isn’t”? The fact of the matter is, there is a standard of good and evil (which we can debate, I suppose, but it seems pretty clear that there is… if there isn’t then we can’t talk about Nazi’s being wrong or about laws or anything really). My question then is… where has this idea of good and evil come from? From where does an atheist derive his standard of what is good and what is not? Let’s tackle this point and we’ll really be getting somewhere…
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Paladin_V
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Actually, not at all. The key word in this argument is “allow.” The opposite of “allow” is “prevent.” A loving God could not “prevent” evil from being freely chosen because then He would not be loving.
God perhaps could have chosen to create those whome He knew would only chose good. The fact of the matter is, however, that evil exists. The point, then, is that this DOES NOT, however RULE OUT the existence of God… God CAN still exist and be a loving God even though evil exists because permiting evil to occur is in fact the loving thing to do because love requires freedom.
Again, the real thing to talk about here is evil itself. Tell me, what is evil? How can you tell me what an evil action is and what a good action is? What is benevolence? What is love? These are the real questions to ask… and the questions that atheists can’t answer correctly.
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MerryAtheist
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Actually, from my perspective, the real questions are: “What is the nature of knowledge? How do we gain knowledge? How do we recognize the difference between what is true and what is false?”
The primary difference between theism and atheism appears to be the response to these questions. The response of the believer generally reveals an underlying assumption that faith is a valid starting point for the acquisition of knowledge; while the nonbeliever rejects faith as a starting point in favor of evidence, reason and logic.
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srferdave
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How can you know what “good” is without “evil”? Thus, a possible reason for evil.
God gives us an explanation of his love for us through free will in the creation stories. He created a world without evil. He also gave us a free will. And through the creation stories he showed us what the consequences of evil are. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told them not to, but he gave them a free will, and they decided to anyways. And because they decided to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they now know what good and evil is, from their own free will. You see, man wanted to know what evil was, and God loves us so much that he gave us the free will to choose whatever we want even though it is not what we will desire in the end. It wasn’t until after they ate the fruit that the world turned evil. God gave us the option to live in a perfect world, but we, through free will, chose not to. And now we all suffer the consequences.
God gives us an explanation of his love for us through free will in the creation stories. He created a world without evil. He also gave us a free will. And through the creation stories he showed us what the consequences of evil are. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told them not to, but he gave them a free will, and they decided to anyways. And because they decided to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they now know what good and evil is, from their own free will. You see, man wanted to know what evil was, and God loves us so much that he gave us the free will to choose whatever we want even though it is not what we will desire in the end. It wasn’t until after they ate the fruit that the world turned evil. God gave us the option to live in a perfect world, but we, through free will, chose not to. And now we all suffer the consequences.
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Karmastrike
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Thats no surprise. humans understanding of the universe is as a young boy going into a huge library. You see all the books, thousands, but you don’t know the author.
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Paladin_V
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Not so. The believer accepts some things purely on faith, true, but much of what we accept is logical, in accordance with reason and has some evidence. If you give some examples of what we accept that you think is not rational or logical, or there is no evidence for, I can hopefully show you why I think it is rational or logical and point you to the evidence.
The fact of the matter is that everyone accepts a whole lot of “truths” on faith. You can’t possibly know everything. How do you know that Darwin existed? Did you meet him? Could not it be a conspiracy (as many people claim religion to be because they weren’t there to witness it)? We all take so much on faith, what we watch on the news, what we learn in school. The examples are endless… how do we know that black holes exist? Have you personally actually seen one with a telescope? The most we can say is someone else said so and it seems logical. Well that’s what Christians today say. Someone else said so and it seems logical, and there’s evidence for it. Everyone whether they like it or not has to have faith about something or we are stuck believing nothing.
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Karmastrike
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Most young people are Atheists, agnostics, or “lazy” believers. I can tell you that just at my school. People tend to believe more then they are older. Maybe in there 40, and 50s when they don’t seem invincible.
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