It's also possible that God was omnipotent at first, but in creation of the Universe, he was trapped in the celestials and could only speak through the words of (I haven't studied the Bible, so correct me) the Prophet, Jesus.
And in that case, we only call him God because we are fearful that he will send us to Hell, but in reality, that's all he can do. He cannot truly smite* evil, but only punish them once they already die.
Ironically, however, the way he smites evil is by saying he smites evil. Paradox, heh.

*using smite as a synonym for "destroying evil"

I've never heard that view before...all I can say is it's unsubstantiated and not mentioned in the Bible. Definitely unBiblical, in fact, because it is clear that God is omnipotent, so the idea of getting 'stuck' is laughable.

Are you arguing it is more benevolent to allow evil than not have there be any evil? If yes, I kindly refer you to the end of revelations, where there is no evil or choice of evil, but this is seen as a good thing.

You're going to have to explain this glory-motivation thing to me.

I'm gonna be lazy here. Everything that happens is God's will. God set us up to fail.
*VIRTUAL SIGH*

A new point just for you: Do you believe perfection begets perfection, or do you think something perfect can create or give rise to something imperfect?

The more I see of these arguments about the invisible giant who can do anything, the more I shrug. If only the Great Awakening did not exist...

God, please kill me with the most intense death of all, RIGHT NOW! If you don't, bah. But I wish I could get rid of this atomic bomb of a headache I've had for a while.

Edit: Still alive.

Well, that wasn't exactly the type of answer I was looking for, but alright I'll move on.

One of the problems I see people make, both christians and non alike, is the tendency to see evil as a being. If evil was a being, a thing, then that whole argument would be completely valid, cuz then it says that either God made it - thus not being an good God - or God did not make it - thus not being the all-power creator of all things. But evil is not a thing, things are not evil in themselves. For instance a sword is not evil, even the stroke of the sword that chops off your head is not evil in its being - in fact, unless it is a "good" stroke it will not chop off your head.

Where is the evil? It is in the will, the choice, the intent, the movement of the soul, which puts a wrong order into the physical world of things and acts. Evil is real, but not a real thing if you get what I mean. It's not subjective but it is not an entity. It is a wrong relationship, a nonconformity between our will and God's will.

Another problem I see is the confusion between two very different kinds of evil: moral evil and physical evil. The distinction between sin and suffering, the evil we actively do and the evil we passively suffer, the evil we freely will and the evil that is against our will, the evil we are directly responsible for and the evil we are not. We need two different explanations for these two different kinds of evil, to explain both their causes and their cures. The origin of sin is human free will and the immediate origin of suffering is nature, or rather the relationship between ourselves and nature (we stub our toe, get pneumonia, drown, etc.) Thus God is off the hook for sin, but not for suffering, it seems - unless the origin of suffering can also be traced to sin. This is what the story in Genesis 3 does.

The bottom line is: God did not make it; we did (free will.) This is where it might be a bit of a stretch for many of you. So the reason I very much dislike Epicurus's argument is because of its very limited perspective (and that it is apparent that the "evil" he's referring to is a thing which God is responsible for whether intentionally or not.)

It's not so much "disproving" epicurus' arguments, but more like there are better questions to ask (and the answers to those will have a great impact on our worldly/spiritual views, even the validity of his arguments.) In my opinion, what we all should be asking is why do we have free will (or if we want to go deeper, which we have discussed many times in the past, what is free will?) Why didn't God just make us obedient robots who automatically obey everything he does? This is a completely different issue altogether and something even we today talk about very much and is one of many arguments or questions non believers ask which has more thought and allows more open minded thinking.
Not saying that we should make or restart a thread on free will immediately, but if you really want to question the problem of evil and/or perhaps the omnipotence, omniscense, and benevolence (or lack thereof) then the problem comes down to free will.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 1 2009, 12:43 am by MillenniumArmy.

What about the choice to disown choice?

A few things: Definition of 'benevolent'
Definition of 'evil'

Moving right along, you're entirely misunderstanding Epicurus' argument and going off on a tangent. You know exactly what he means:
1. Bad things happen.
2. God doesn't like bad things.
3. God is omnipotent.
4. God is omniscient.
5. Why are there bad things?

It's obvious that God loves destroying things that he's not ok with (Remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? How about Cain?), so why doesn't that happen anymore? Why isn't God out destroying all the evil right now if he's omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent? He can see it, he can destroy is, and he should want to destroy it, as we've seen in earlier examples, so either he is not one of those three things, or doesn't exist. Also, CAFG was referring to chapters 21 and 22 of the Book of Revalations, in which Heaven and Earth are recreated without pain or suffering, so Kaias' point is invalid, or the Bible is.

Another thing from Revelation that I'd like to point out is the following summary of chapter 20:
If he can do that, why not do it ALL THE TIME?

Because we made them happen. This is exactly what I've been saying the whole time. Remember, if God simply eliminates all bad things that we made, then that's the same as us living life as obedient robots with no free will (again the subject of free will and why we have this is something entirely different.) The point I'm making about epicurus' arguments is that its perspective is too narrow and that there's a bigger picture than that.

EDIT: About those examples in the Bible. Why doesn't God do all that? I'll be honest with you; I really don't know. I don't know if all those examples are simply metaphoric descriptions of events or not, but that's why I continually to study the Bible every week hoping to find answers.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 1 2009, 2:08 am by MillenniumArmy.

While we're on the topic of God, could God heat a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it? I've always wanted to know the reasoning behind the answer.

Maybe.

Why would god eat Mexican food to begin with when he could have Chinese or Pizza instead?

If he is OMNISCIENT, he should know that Mexican food will have him - well how does the old saying go? "Shitting out Bibles".


Also, I think if Mr. God could eliminate evil, he should start with unfriendly bowel movements.

He could, then He would eat it anyway.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 1 2009, 2:29 am by zany_001. Reason: The serious answer is 'Why would God do something so stupid

Do you think that in those chapters, we're obedient robots? Either way, if those chapters are true, then why would there be a problem with stopping us from doing bad things?

Also, if there is a God...



Then how come there's THIS?!

My new religion/belief is that the BK King could totally hold his own in a fight vs any god. (Except maybe Zeus or Shiva, those gods would probably wipe the floor with BK King.)

Shiva's got six arms, that's cheating. <.<

First, I am very aware of what evil and benevolent are defined as. Second, who said anything about the bible? You accuse me both of going off on a tangent and completely misunderstanding Epicurus' statements, while in reality you are guilty of the former and apparently of misunderstanding me.

In fact, you didn't address anything I talked about at all.

The problem with Epicurus' arguments are the massive arbitrary assumptions he makes "about the nature of God and how one must/should run things".

Wiktionary: "Possessing or manifesting love for mankind."
A jolly life of no hardship, mistake, pain, and thus no growth or agency is both meaningless and not love for mankind.

No way, it's called strategy. You're just jealous that your god is lame with only 2 arms.

!!! That sceered me!

That post was more directed at MA, but, AGAIN:
You didn't address my (/CAFG's) point about Revelation, and your post was actually directed at me. I'd say Revelation was rather explicit "about the nature of God and how one must/should run things", wouldn't you?

Once again you ignore the substance of my point. I said nothing about the bible and yet somehow
some biblical passage invalidates my argument.

This is the point where I stop assuming your intelligence. I'm done here.