The 3rd Anti-Christ THE ULTIMATE LOGIC BENDER

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

-Epicurus

In the beginning there was only God so obviously he created evil.

a reply to: ketsuko

The problem with naturalism is that instinctively there are only two responses to any given situation. Fight or flight. Looking at those two responses logically, fleeing doesn't actually SOLVE the problem. You just aren't near the danger anymore. Fighting it is violent and may provoke retaliation for your actions.

Looking at things logically, to REALLY solve problems, you must rise above animal instincts, think each problem through thoroughly and apply a unique solution to each. Fight or flight is too broad of an answer to life's complicated problems. Unfortunately, humans still rely heavily on the fight response to their actions. I hesitate to state this next bit as a fact as I don't have supporting statistics to back it up, but I'd reason that as people become more intelligent and informed, they become less violent (as they realize that violence is only an appropriate answer to very few problems in life).

a reply to: ViciLaw

People like to use the term 'God's plan' as a negative, as if their own consciousness is somehow superior, or more efficient. It's like this, baiting person: God does plan, but he doesn't pre-determine everyone's fate. He simply knows what's going to happen based on the choices you make. It's like being able to see the whole of a Monopoly board, when you can only see the spaces directly in front of you. God has to alter his plans based on YOUR actions, God does not control you. Or Satan. You though, allow yourself to be controlled by others, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. God DID allow evil, because he allows free-will. That's something folks like you use as ammo, although I don't really know why. If you didn't have free-will, you'd complain about that as well. God cannot 'win' that argument, because your not looking for debate, your looking for disparagement.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

God allowed evil to manifest, because He knows He can defeat it.

Utter crap.
And even if "he" can - why does he 'allow' it to hurt and subject the rest of us to his psychotic game?

originally posted by: damwel

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

-Epicurus

In the beginning there was only God so obviously he created evil.

What color is evil?

What shape is evil?

How much does evil weigh?

Or perhaps evil is not a 'thing' as you have described it, but is an intention in the mind of an evil-doer.

This whole thread is based upon an abstraction that ignores the perpetrator of evil.

You can't do that. Evil does not exist of its own.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: chr0naut

"I don't know about art, but I know what I like"

"The fat one balances out the two skinny ones".

a reply to: chr0naut

It really says it all doesn't it? The christian church in 3minutes...

a reply to: chr0naut

I do agree with you there. Evil is an absence of love just as darkness is an absence of light.

Let's control what we can, that being our conduct. Let's be Christ-like, that, in my mind is kind, compassionate, charitable and wise. Leave the big stuff to God.

a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

Riddle me this:
Hitler was loved by Eva Braun and Blondie, enough for both of them to willingly die for him.

What does that tell you about your 0/1 platitude?

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

Riddle me this:
Hitler was loved by Eva Braun and Blondie, enough for both of them to willingly die for him.

What does that tell you about your 0/1 platitude?

But did he love them? Lots of women love evil men. I think when a person has no genuine love for anyone else then they are evil.

I'm not trying to prove god btw. I was just pointing out that the existence of evil can't disprove god. I'm not religious and even I see that.
To me evil falls in with those ideas that are actually just nothing. Another example...cold is the absence of heat.

a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

Just saying,

Evil is an absence of love

can hardly be true when they are loved, but still evil.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

Just saying,

Evil is an absence of love

can hardly be true when they are loved, but still evil.

You didn't get my point? He was loved by others, but I don't think he loved others.

Like I said, lots of women have loved evil men. It doesn't mean those men loved them back or that they had any love in their hearts.

a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

Hm. I don't know still feels utterly simplistic. Or like a double standard in a double standard.

Unless: maybe like pH. It's about the mixture. Hm.... But Hitlers problems were more complicated than just "absence of love" some people long for love all their life and still are decent and kind, so....

a reply to: Peeple

Right but my point is that some people seem incapable of loving anyone else. Love is foreign to them and they've never felt it for another person.

Even if other people do love them.

I could be wrong about evil being the absence of love. It can't be proven, but it is true that you don't have to love someone back in order to be loved. That's a very obvious fact of life. It doesn't matter how many people love you. If you never feel love for anyone else you're going to be pretty lacking in compassion.

a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

And just to clarify one more time:

I'm not saying that he was evil because he didn't have enough people love him. I'm saying he never felt love for anyone else.

a reply to: JessicaRabbitTx

But that wouldn't be the abscence of love, so your point is still wrong, because, there is, people were projecting love on him, he just had a very dark personality and turned it into total control. But the reason is not the abscence of love, the opposite maybe, he got an overwhelming mother and an overdose as a kid. There is no such thing as "purely good/evil" one mans love can kill millions of people. Is what i am trying to say.

originally posted by: JessicaRabbitTx
a reply to: chr0naut

I do agree with you there. Evil is an absence of love just as darkness is an absence of light.

Of course people who do evil can both love and be loved.

History shows us that love can provide a strong motivation for doing evil.

The dichotomy of love and evil is the basis for much drama, both fictional and factual.

By abstracting evil away from the person, you are objectifying it into a symbolic entity which can be semantically manipulated in the same way as other symbols. In that way, you can make it appear as if God is somehow culpable for evil, but He isn't.

God has granted us free will, a complex thought life and a wildly variable universe. In this environment we have a wide array of choices before us. Some of those choices fall towards evil, others to good, still others are neither good nor evil.

In the same way that we could not justly punish the grandparents of a murderer, we cannot allocate the blame for our human evil, back to the Creator.

To quote the lyric of "Nemesis" a song by the band Shriekback; "Evil is the exact science of being carefully, correctly wrong".

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
-Epicurus

That argument is void if evil has purpose. In Gospel of Thomas it hints so "For there will be five in a house: there'll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone."

If the evil this world exists to force us to awaken into another realm then couldn't that evil be really love in disguise. Perhaps when we awaken we will be told from a comforting voice, fear not, you were only asleep having a nightmare that wasn't real. Hindu's and Buddhist call our reality maya, an illusion, that we shouldn't take too seriously.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Abednego

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Abednego

originally posted by: noeltrotsky

originally posted by: Klassified
a reply to: noeltrotsky

I don't believe in the 'Hell' story, and it's distinct lack of discussion in the many assembled stories in the Bible leads me to think there is no 'Hell' and thus no 'wrath'.

Although Bible depicts Hell as a place of punishment, the reality is that Hell is a place of purification. Purification by fire. The prize for the saved ones is to keep the knowledge and consciousness of what will happen.

Revelation 20:14 and 15
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Revelation 21:1
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Nope, fire doesn't cleanse, it burns up. In the Biblical setting, it was understood that it permanently disposes of rubbish.

Also, nothing there says the "lake of fire" is eternal, either.

Energy and matter don't get destroy, they transform (change). Ashes can be use as fertilizer for plant growth. Also through fire you can recover metals and other types of minerals and nutrients.
So is a way of purification, turning something bad into something good or useful.

Fair enough, but it is a modern abstraction away from what would have been understood at the time that text actually says.

Is a very old knowledge. During the month of February we celebrate the "Candelaria", Spanish for "the burning". Where farmers burn the bushes and any unwanted vegetation. It has a religious roots, meaning that you are destroying the bad stuff to make path for more productive and useful things. Then came the rain season (ground absorb all of the ashes). Younger generations don't know it's real purpose.