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TiggerS
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“The Problem of Evil” - from: Catholic Education Resource Centre:
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Amandil
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Not only does it beg the question, it doesn’t even solve the problem. It’s like claiming that you can cure the common cold by cutting the person’s head off.
This is always funny coming from an atheist because you deny any objective morality altogether.
Secondly, knowing that someone is going to do a thing is not to make them do it. So unless you’re going to deny human free will, and assert that humans are utterly dependent on some naturalistic determinism to which “good” or “evil” are nothing but “social constructs” and is neither real nor objectively binding on anyone; or acknowledge that humans are in fact moral agents and thus responsible before God for their moral conduct.
Secondly, there is no such thing as divine determinism; that’s Calvinism, not Christianity. We are nor God’s robots following His every command in order to fulfill the divine providence, we are His children with free will. IOW God’s created causal chains include one link-the human will-which is more than just one more link in a one-directional vertical chain. It hops “sideways”, so to speak, and creates its own new chain of effects.
So instead of just killing their own children why didn’t they give the children up for adoption to those who didn’t have any.
Let’s no expect people to actually be responsible, I mean, seriously, that would be insensitive and discriminatory.
Instead lets blame God; or better yet, let’s just say that there is no God and blame Him anyway. That’s much more intelligent.
He doesn’t make much sense, I tell you that.
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Credo_in_Deum
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Do not be discouraged, Stillsosola. In Christ we have our hope, for during His Passion we, likewise with this innocent child, would have been dumbfounded at the cruelty of His captors and discouraged with the Father for allowing such a thing to happen to His only Begotten Son. Yet, if we were to entertain such temptations to despair and doubt our Heavenly Father, we would have missed Christ’s glorious Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Take solace in the fact that God never allows an innocent to suffer without a reason, and that He never leaves the innocent lost to obscurity but rather raises them up to Himself. God knows the suffering of this little one for He too waits helplessly, unattended, unwanted, neglected, and thirsting for souls in Tabernacles all over the world. Abandoned by the very ones who call Him down to the altar and by the very ones who are supposed to receive Him with reverence and love.
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empther
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From post 29
What have you been doing lately?
Sorry if Theresa is not Methodist.
She’s Catholic, which will interest 1,150,000,000 Catholics.
Empress Theresa will bring thousands of young people safely into God’s arms.
What have you been doing lately?
Sorry if Theresa is not Methodist.
She’s Catholic, which will interest 1,150,000,000 Catholics.
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VonRupp
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One of the greatest ironies in religious debate is a strong atheist calling a strong theist absurd.
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tonyrey
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Your objection implies that you have sufficient knowledge to create a universe in which everything goes according to plan. Please supply a feasible blueprint…
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tonyrey
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Your objection implies that you have sufficient knowledge to create a universe in which everything goes according to plan. Please supply a feasible blueprint…
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tonyrey
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Your objection implies that you have sufficient knowledge to create a universe in which everything goes according to plan. Please supply a feasible blueprint…
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Oreoracle
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You’re missing the point. I’m not saying I know how to do something. I’m saying that God knows how to do something. There’s a difference between saying “I know X” and “I know that Y knows X”. I don’t actually have to know X to substantiate the second statement.
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empther
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Friends,
one of the common techniques of atheists is to slip some point into the middle of an argument unnoticed, and then reach the wrong conclusion.
Here’s an example:
From post 50
This assumption has no basis and in fact common sense tells us it’s impossible. Things won’t go right in an Adolf Hitler world.
The entire argument is worthless.
one of the common techniques of atheists is to slip some point into the middle of an argument unnoticed, and then reach the wrong conclusion.
Here’s an example:
From post 50
I’m saying that God knows how to do something.:bigyikes: :banghead: assumes that God could create a world in which everything works fine while human beings are allowed to exercize free will.
This assumption has no basis and in fact common sense tells us it’s impossible. Things won’t go right in an Adolf Hitler world.
The entire argument is worthless.
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Amandil
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This is true. The atheist assumes that a materialistic world with no God is a utopia. He assumes or believes that if everyone were atheist that they would all be altruists.
This is no way follows from the facts because atheism ignores the fact of fallen humanity and that many if not most(or all) people are by nature egocentric.
The fact is that God created the perfect world that atheists assume He didn’t, and that humanity, as the “high priest” of that creation, ruined that creation by the fact of his disobedience. Man had every opportunity to NOT ruin it, but still did, not entirely of his own accord, but because of an evil influence.
So by grace man is offered forgiveness and an opportunity to reform his egocentrism which he inherited as a state.
An atheist utopia which denies the fact of sin and man’s tendency towards egocentrism is an idea based frankly on ignorance, not observation. We’re all selfish jerks, not just once a day but many times a day. So any hope of a genuine society of “altruistic” atheists is a fantasy based upon science fiction shows like “Star Trek”, not upon reality.
The atheistic economic/political systems of the past 100-or-so years have demonstrated an utilitarian view of humanity and an indifference towards human life. And the atrocities that followed from them in every case make any atrocities committed by religion look like child’s play.
There’s absolutely no reason not to expect that in their atheistic utopia that these same atrocities-the Holocaust in Germany, the Holodomor, the mass slaughter in Laos and Cambodia, the slaughter and humanitarian offenses in China, etc., would in fact be manifold.
But we’re suppose to accept that their world would be “perfect”. I’m sure it would, when they’ve eliminated anyone who refused to go along and they’ve burned every bible that exists, razed every church, burned and destroyed every piece of artwork, etc.
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Oreoracle
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Empther, I think someday you’ll find that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. In particular, you’ll realize that addressing someone in a discussion as a human being and not as if they’re some circus spectacle will work wonders.
Sincerely,
A common atheist (a.k.a. Oreoracle)
Sincerely,
A common atheist (a.k.a. Oreoracle)
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empther
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Ahah! I got you good in my last post, hunh?
You atheists are constantly using every deceptive trick in the book to attack the faith of people. You attack our most precious possession: our religion. You would draw our children into the enemy’s hands.
I have no sympathy for you.
Go join the atheist forum I belonged to briefly last year ( before they kicked me out ). You’ll find a warm welcome over there.
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TiggerS
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TiggerS
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Article for The Interested
“Problem of Suffering Reconsidered” (Catholic Culture website)
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4297
Book for The Interested
Atheist Delusions
stpauls.com.au/product/66/Theology/Hart%2C+David+Bentley/6562/Atheist+Delusions
The Christian Revolution And Its Fashionable Enemies
By Hart, David Bentley (Author)
$24.95 **AUD **
Currently it is fashionable to be devoutly undevout. Religion’s most passionate antagonists–Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and others–have publishers competing eagerly to market their various denunciations of religion, monotheism, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. But contemporary antireligious polemics are based not only upon profound conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history or even outright historical ignorance: so contends David Bentley Hart in this bold correction of the distortions.
One of the most brilliant scholars of religion of our time, Hart provides a powerful antidote to the New Atheists’ misrepresentations of the Christian past, bringing into focus the truth about the most radical revolution in Western history.
Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the “Age of Reason” was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason’s authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.
“Problem of Suffering Reconsidered” (Catholic Culture website)
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4297
Book for The Interested
Atheist Delusions
stpauls.com.au/product/66/Theology/Hart%2C+David+Bentley/6562/Atheist+Delusions
The Christian Revolution And Its Fashionable Enemies
By Hart, David Bentley (Author)
$24.95 **AUD **
Currently it is fashionable to be devoutly undevout. Religion’s most passionate antagonists–Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and others–have publishers competing eagerly to market their various denunciations of religion, monotheism, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. But contemporary antireligious polemics are based not only upon profound conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history or even outright historical ignorance: so contends David Bentley Hart in this bold correction of the distortions.
One of the most brilliant scholars of religion of our time, Hart provides a powerful antidote to the New Atheists’ misrepresentations of the Christian past, bringing into focus the truth about the most radical revolution in Western history.
Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the “Age of Reason” was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason’s authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.
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tonyrey
Guest
Saying God knows how to do something implies knowledge of what is feasible - which implies omniscience!
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Robertanthony
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I thought nobody would ever ask. God is prescient, he knows every little detail of every person’s life who has ever lived, who will ever live. Ok, a woman is promiscuous (Catholic parlance), loves sex (common parlance), God knew she was going to be that way, make her less fertile. If someone is going to find life unbearable, make his conception not happen or make his mom miscarry (she’ll get over it or I think it may happen without her knowledge in the earliest stage of the pregnancy). Speaking for myself, life is not my thing, I’m like a damned looking at the bliss of the elect, I see all the good things I could enjoy if God, through my parents, had gifted me adequately. God giving me life is like a Jewish woman in a concentration camp with a sign reading Arbeit macht fre**i, she’s determined to get pregnant no matter. God is as smart and wise as that Jewis woman. God can do whatever he wants, he’s the master of life and death, we’re his little sheep, remember he can do no wrong, so only giving life to people who will embrace it makes sense. Giving life only to people who will embrace it and end up on the good side of eternity makes even more sense, because eternal despair and pain must not be a lot of fun. God, in that case, would not be forcing himself on anyone, nobody is a robot (free-will die-hard fan’s most compelling argument), hell is empty save for Satan and his entourage. Another feasible blueprint would be an immortal God who would make himself mortal so that eventually all this beautiful creation where God is pervasive would cease to exist altogether. I decree sleep for everyone.
That being said, the Christian view of God does not add up. Natascha Kampusch was not purified by her harrowing ordeal, neither was she protected by God or saved by God. God did not test her, he let her experience what no child that age should ever experience. If he had willed it, the abduction would have failed, someone would have secretely followed him, someone would have recognized him and she would have been freed before the day was done. God allowed it to bring a greater good? What an intellectually lazy coward’s cheap cop-out. God is probably much closer to a deist’s god, looking from a distance with a certain amount of indifference at the affairs of humans.
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Oreoracle
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I think we disagree on what omnipotence entails. The standard definition apologists use is that an omnipotent being can do anything that is logically possible. In other words, as long as the action isn’t self-contradictory, such as creating a 4-sided triangle, God should be able to do it.
“Knowledge of what is feasible”, then, boils down to knowing what is logically possible. This is nice, because humans and God are actually on the same level in this regard. Even God can’t falsify our mathematical proofs, for example. So as long as we can imagine a world in a consistent manner (i.e., in a non-contradictory way), it must be within God’s power to make that world a reality.
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oldcelt
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I am struggling with whether God has any emotional attachment to us at all. One thing I do feel fairly certain of is that He does not control events here on earth. These terrible events are our own doing and so are the wonderful.
I agree with you also that to justify this from a Christian perspective requires some extraordinary spiritual gymnastics.
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