The atheists best argument?

[Peter_Plato]

Was it evil to drop an atomic bomb and to murder thousands of innocent people, including children? Many Americans say no, but many Japanese say yes.
Is it evil to kidnap and torture innocent people in foreign countries? Or is it a good thing to do in time of war?

So, are you saying it is impossible to distinguish good from evil? Or that in some cases it is not always clear what is good and what is evil?

There are some questions you may pose that may be vexing, but does that imply all such questions have no clear answer?

Is it evil to torture children just for fun?

What do you think? Is that a hard question or an easy one?

Perhaps determining the clear answers to the easy questions will help us see our way through to answering the more difficult ones?

Why start at the difficult ones, and – because the answers are not easy or forthcoming – simply shrug and say, “I give up on the entire enterprise.”

Sounds a little backwards, I think, to do it that way, no?

We wouldn’t jump into trigonometry and after meeting some difficulty conclude that mathematics or simple arithmetic are a fool’s quest, would we?

Well, okay, some of us seem to want to take that option.

 

[thinkandmull]

And I am sure that people who imagine themselves to be the recipient of that “greater joy” might be comforted by this. But would you comfort the weeping mothers of Egypt, who had just lost their firstborn, with this explanation?

God’s not a human. It sounds unfair to say we suffer but He doesn’t, He doesn’t have to try to be God. But God is not human and that takes some thinking to understand. He allows evil for greater joys that can only come through suffering. Sufferers thank Him eventually

 

[Tomdstone]

Is it evil to torture children just for fun?

Yes it is. And it is evil to torture the unborn child and to murder her. But this is what a major party platform advocates. The statement was made that the Cathari were evil people. But are they the only example of people who did evil? Also, it was a blanket statement not distinguishing between good and bad Cathari. The implication made was that it was justified to persecute all Cathari because some of them were evil people. But using that reasoning, why is it not justified to persecute all those Americans who support evil practices such as abortion or dropping an atomic bomb and thereby murdering innocent people?

 

[Wesrock]

This has moved beyond the problem of evil, really. An omniscient God would be capable of rendering perfect justice, in life and/or after. Death isn’t the end of existence, and arguing as a starting assumption to arguing that a religion that says otherwise is false us circular reasoning.

 

[Cheiron]

God’s not a human. It sounds unfair to say we suffer but He doesn’t, He doesn’t have to try to be God. But God is not human and that takes some thinking to understand. He allows evil for greater joys that can only come through suffering. Sufferers thank Him eventually

A few years ago, I read the story of a man who was abused as a young boy by a Catholic man of the cloth. The boy was accused of homosexuality and his balls were cut off. A month later, another article in the same newspaper showed that it was official Church policy to have young gay men and boys castrated, simply because of their sexual orientation. Do you really think these men experienced joy later in life because of this? Do you think these men will eventually even thank God for this?

What you’re saying is that evil isn’t actually evil at all. It will all balance out nicely in the end. How you know this, I have no idea. But I would like to see some evidence for it. Otherwise it just sounds like you coldly minimize people’s suffering in order to exculpate your God from deliberate blindness to heinous and gruesome crimes.

 

[thinkandmull]

I don’t know what you mean by official Church policy. Did Rome approve of this practice?

Anyway, we believe God is powerful enough to bring good out of evil. Why not, however, just have the good. PERHAPS it is only possible to bring about greater goods by allowing suffering. If this is the case, and you don’t know everything so you can’t refute it, God would be good still in allowing evil so that more joy can result from people feeling rescued by God

 

[inocente]

The answer is simple yet difficult to accept.
God is love and is the source of everything.
Because God is love he desires relationship with his creatures.
A relationship of love is free by nature. Without free will there can be no relationship.
Human beings are created for communion with each other in God.
Human beings abuse free will to reject God.
Because we are created for communion with one another, the failings of one person affect all, even though those effects might not be obvious. .

God does not actively will suffering to prove how good he is.
God simply allows us to freely choose him or reject him, with the resulting consequences.
There is a difference between allowing or respecting free will, and actively willing suffering.
While he does not will suffering for anyone, because he is goodness itself suffering can be transformed for the good, for those who unite it to God.
That’s where Jesus comes in.

That doesn’t answer the Problem of Evil. The abused child is not allowed free-will by the abuser. You appear to be claiming that God values the abuser’s free-will more than the child’s, in which case God would favor perverts over innocents and so would not be omni-benevolent.

 

[inocente]

Well, no that isn’t my perspective at all.

My perspective is that God isn’t the kind of thing to merely have a “perspective” in any sense that is analogous to our “perspectives.”

If Christ (God) is the light that enlightens all men, then any perspective that we might possibly have is ultimately founded and underwritten by God. In other words, we “see” through and by God. He is the pure Ground of Being that makes “perspective” a possibility at all.

There are no independent “perspectives,” there are merely distortions on seeing properly, on seeing correctly, blindnesses of some kind or other. It is these blindnesses we euphemistically call “perspectives.”

If God’s ultimate goal is for us to see things properly “in him and through him,” then his endeavor is more like correcting our vision, not giving us a “different perspective,” but eyes to see. We are innately seeing FROM the right place, the correct perspective as it were, it is just that we are constantly trying to see things from other perspectives (blind spots) which simply blur our vision and avoids how we supposed to see in the first place: to see rightly from a genuine, uncontaminated place at the centre of Being Itself.

Evil is the existential unmooring of beings from Being Itself, from Light Itself, from Truth Itself.

The problem of evil for God isn’t a heuristic one, it is an existential one – regrounding each of us so that we see with and through “the mind of Christ.”

Morally speaking, God isn’t engrossed in the problem of child abuse, per se. That is merely symptomatic of a much larger problem. It isn’t what child abusers do that is the fundamental issue, it is what they are, what they have made themselves. God, then, must work with each individual to remake or reground them in himself. That isn’t done merely by stopping or outlawing symptomatic behaviour. The symptomatic behaviour is only that - symptomatic – it tells us that something more fundamental is wrong. But what needs to be fixed is not addressed by masking symptoms, by stopping particular actions or behaviours. The symptoms need to be revealed so that the real problem is made obvious.

God doesn’t fix people by stopping sinful behaviour, he heals by changing the fundamental ground upon which they exist, from which they see, their “perspective” – from one of being unhinged to one of being grounded in Ultimate Reality, Himself.

If we take the human approach to medicine – relief of pain or stopping the annoying symptoms of unwellness, then we might say God is a good doctor in that he wants to see and show us all of the symptoms that ail us so that we might become concerned about the real disease that afflicts us.

He isn’t about hiding the “evils” behind a facade of “good,” he wants to cure the evil at its very source, that upon which we ground our own, and necessarily false and distorted, “perspectives.”

That doesn’t answer the Problem of Evil. You appear to be claiming that God is exclusively concerned with healing the pervert’s soul. None of what you say shows any concern for the child, who isn’t healed but is seriously damaged by permitting the abuse. God would be disgustingly and obscenely evil to permit the child to be used as an object so as to teach us or the pervert a lesson, or for any other reason.

Even a strict utilitarian or hedonist would have great difficulty finding any good in the act of child rape. Some acts are always evil, no good ever came from any child being raped.

 

[inocente]

I think most decent people would apologise for making that mistake.

I guess we can all draw our own conclusions from the fact that Tony didn’t deem it necessary.

Hi , long time no see.

Once again you are barking up the wrong tree… I have already pointed out that I didn’t attribute it to him - and it wasn’t a mistake. You are obviously unaware of the context:

For the third time, I didn’t write the sentence you attributed to me in the first quote of your post #142.

 

[goout]

That doesn’t answer the Problem of Evil. The abused child is not allowed free-will by the abuser. You appear to be claiming that God values the abuser’s free-will more than the child’s, in which case God would favor perverts over innocents and so would not be omni-benevolent.

I’m not sure how you could possible make that inference from my post. I’ll just restate it.
I’m addressing the problem of evil in the presence of an omnipotent and all loving God. Why does evil still exist. My post addresses the relationship between God and man. God respects free will. The abuser does not. Generally speaking, human beings abuse free will.

God is love and is the source of everything.
Because God is love he desires relationship with his creatures.
A relationship of love is free by nature. Without free will there can be no relationship.
Human beings are created for communion with each other in God.
Human beings abuse free will to reject God.
Because we are created for communion with one another, the failings of one person affect all, even though those effects might not be obvious. .

God does not actively will suffering to prove how good he is.
God simply allows us to freely choose him or reject him, with the resulting consequences.
There is a difference between allowing or respecting free will, and actively willing suffering.
While he does not will suffering for anyone, because he is goodness itself suffering can be transformed for the good, for those who unite it to God.
That’s where Jesus comes in.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

God’s not a human. It sounds unfair to say we suffer but He doesn’t, He doesn’t have to try to be God. But God is not human and that takes some thinking to understand. He allows evil for greater joys that can only come through suffering. Sufferers thank Him eventually

Even the sufferers who end up in hell? If I recall correctly, it is Zoroastrianism that believes hell is not eternal, and Christianity that thinks otherwise.

 

[goout]

Even the sufferers who end up in hell? If I recall correctly, it is Zoroastrianism that believes hell is not eternal, and Christianity that thinks otherwise.

Christianity respects free will. Part of loving someone is honoring free will.
The only people who lack God’s love are those who reject it. Hell is a chosen deprivation, not something God wills for someone. The proof that God does not will it is that he condescended to the point of suffering death so that we might have the way out.

Christ suffered for us, and with us. His suffering is the way to liberation and life, IF we unite our will to his.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Are you saying that killing evil people is never justified?

Or that there are no possible situations under which killing evil people is ever necessitated?

I was saying precisely what I said: the “evilness” of the persecuted is the justification for virtually every genocide ever. If we were playing the uncharitable interpretations game, I’d wonder if your confusion about this point meant you were in the pro-genocide camp.

 

[Aloysium]

That doesn’t answer the Problem of Evil. You appear to be claiming that God is exclusively concerned with healing the pervert’s soul. None of what you say shows any concern for the child, who isn’t healed but is seriously damaged by permitting the abuse. God would be disgustingly and obscenely evil to permit the child to be used as an object so as to teach us or the pervert a lesson, or for any other reason.

Even a strict utilitarian or hedonist would have great difficulty finding any good in the act of child rape. Some acts are always evil, no good ever came from any child being raped.

:twocents:

The healing power of God’s love is infinite.
As eternal beings called to reunite ourselves with God, who is Love, what destroys us is not what goes in, but comes out of us.
Evil breeds further evil. Through God’s grace, the cross, we can turn it all around.

I have met a number of people who have suffered individual and state-sanctioned abuse. A friend of many years was tortured decades ago for her political beliefs and, I believe, to keep in line a relative who had a certain amount of influence within the particular military controlled totalitarian state. Sometime ago the tyrant died and the funeral was broadcast with many accolades about the good he had done, along with the requisite gun-salutes and fighter jet fly-by’s. Her comment to me, was one of those that seem to pierce through to the heart of reality. When she said, “I feel like a small piece of dirt.”, I saw her, as she is, her suffering, the injustice, the rage, the hate, the anger, the fear, the utter despair. Here was the crystal clear reality of her existence, the miracle of her human being. Juxtaposed were the lies and shared illusions that constitute the fabric of societal power systems. Flesh heals, physical scars can fade, bones mend and teeth can be replaced, but it takes something else to heal the emotional and spiritual scars. Only God can transform that evil into good, wash away the grime that grows internally and is forced upon us. Like many others, she has found her salvation in Jesus Christ.

To my mind there is no problem of evil. It is, as is love. It is action that takes from what is other in order to gain something for oneself. It lies at the core of who we are in our disconnection from God. And, wherein lies the cure? Jesus Christ, who through the grace of the Holy Spirit has enabled us to give of ourselves and ultimately enter into eternal communion with the Triune Godhead.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Christianity respects free will. Part of loving someone is honoring free will.
The only people who lack God’s love are those who reject it. Hell is a chosen deprivation, not something God wills for someone. The proof that God does not will it is that he condescended to the point of suffering death so that we might have the way out.

Christ suffered for us, and with us. His suffering is the way to liberation and life, IF we unite our will to his.

But hell exists, and its properties (e.g. no escape ever) are fixed. Arguing that something exists without God willing it to, or having properties that are not ultimately attributable to God is to deny yourself the prime mover family of arguments everyone here is so fond of.

Second, it still seems to me that you are arguing against a straw man:

No. No one has said that [God forcibly removes free will.] If I stated otherwise please point out exactly where. Now perhaps you are suggesting:

It is logically impossible to create a world which contains free will, but does not contain evil.

If you really are making that case, be aware that it has troubling implications. For example, if God were to make a universe in which exactly one free will decision was made, then that decision would necessarily be evil.

 

[tonyrey]

For the third time, I didn’t write the sentence you attributed to me in the first quote of your post #142.

NB:

In a Godless universe there is no reason why anything exists.

As I have explained, I didn’t attribute that sentence to you. It was my reply to your statement:

A secular society is a good defense against the excesses of Talibans and co.

It isn’t a good defence at all. In the UK millions of unborn children have been killed because they were inconvenient…

 

[Cheiron]

I don’t know what you mean by official Church policy. Did Rome approve of this practice?

Not that I’m aware of, but it appeared to be routine in my country in the 1950’s and '60’s

Anyway, we believe God is powerful enough to bring good out of evil. Why not, however, just have the good. PERHAPS it is only possible to bring about greater goods by allowing suffering. If this is the case, and you don’t know everything so you can’t refute it, God would be good still in allowing evil so that more joy can result from people feeling rescued by God.

And what if you’re not rescued, like the young gay men who were castrated? All that remains then is that God allowed evil to be inflicted upon innocent people.

My main problem is with the part “…God woud be good still in allowing evil so that more joy…” Even if God allows evil for the greater good, then that would still not take away His responsibility. Some people steal for the greater good of feeding their family, but that doesn’t mean they’re not thieves and don’t have to serve time in jail. And God who knowingly allows the evil of stealing can (and should) be charged with the crime of complicity.

So even if I accept your argument that God allows evil for the greater good, then that still means God is not omnibenevolent. I can hardly imagine the amount of trees a prosecutor has to cut down before he can finally print the indictment of God for complicity in the evil mankind has suffered throughout history.

 

[inocente]

NB:
As I have explained, I didn’t attribute that sentence to you. It was my reply to your statement:
It isn’t a good defence at all. In the UK millions of unborn children have been killed because they were inconvenient…

Here follows the quote exactly as it appeared in your post #142. Your quote is headed “Originally posted by inocente” WHICH IS NOT TRUE, I NEVER POSTED IT.

• In a Godless universe there is no reason why anything exists. *
  **

There’s no point you continually denying it when the moderator and everyone else can look at the thread and see that I never posted it .

Can we please get back to the subject now?

 

[goout]

But hell exists, and its properties (e.g. no escape ever) are fixed. Arguing that something exists without God willing it to, or having properties that are not ultimately attributable to God is to deny yourself the prime mover family of arguments everyone here is so fond of.

Second, it still seems to me that you are arguing against a straw man:

We have free will. We make free choices with our free will. God respects free will. Choices have consequences. Because free will is respected we suffer consequences caused by the abuse of free will.
It’s not that complicated.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

We have free will. We make free choices with our free will. God respects free will. Choices have consequences. Because free will is respected we suffer consequences caused by the abuse of free will.
It’s not that complicated.

But that doesn’t contradict anything I’ve said so far.