Well that's just because God works in mysterious ways you lil silly Billy.
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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This is sorta the beginners philosophy question. There are plenty of answers, it's not the "gotcha" it appears to be. Those answers unroll into all sorts of branching other conversations but they exist.
Maybe it's because free will exists.
Maybe there's a greater purpose for what we call "evil" that results in more good.
Maybe it's a definitional thing, where "evil" to us is always going to be the most-evil existent thing so if existing evils were gone "evil" would still exist but it would consist of aggressive kitten licks or something. So "evil" can't not exist, but it's not because God can't get rid of what we call "evil" now.
Maybe there's a greater purpose for what we call "evil" that results in more good.
A work of fiction I very much enjoy called UNSONG uses a variant of this as the answer to the question of evil. The basic notion being that at the level of abstraction that God operates at two identical things are essentially one thing and so in order to maximize the total net good he creates universe upon universe, all slightly different but each ultimately resulting in more good than bad in net. The universe the story takes place in is recognizably similar to ours until the Nixon administration, and it is explicitly said to be "far from the center of the garden". IOW in a region of possibility space in which few potential universes are good on net.
The story is also an absolute master class in foreshadowing to the point that if you just listen as the story repeatedly tells you how one should interpret text, you can derive the ending from like the first paragraph of chapter 1 by just digging deep enough. And it goes a lot deeper than that. It's not just an aesthetic choice that every chapter name is a Blake reference, or that the story is arranged into groupings of four, ten, twenty two and seventy two. It also manages to analogize itself to both the works of William Blake and the song American Pie because why not?
Is Scott Alexander a dickhead like Yudkowsky?
I'd be shocked if he wasn't, depending on one's definition of dickhead. Everyone is a dickhead for some definition of dickhead.
UNSONG is still a great fantasy story and a master class in foreshadowing, regardless of how one feels about the author.
Maybe it's because free will exists.
Then God shouldn't have given it to us, still his fault, OP still applies
Maybe there's a greater purpose for what we call "evil" that results in more good.
Then God should have given us the understanding of it so we're not left to question him, OP still applies
Maybe it's a definitional thing, where "evil" to us is always going to be the most-evil existent thing so if existing evils were gone "evil" would still exist but it would consist of aggressive kitten licks or something. So "evil" can't not exist, but it's not because God can't get rid of what we call "evil" now.
Shitty point, we have a clear definition of what these evils are currently and yet nothing is done about them. Maybe if we somehow lived in a world that no longer had the evils we see today you'd have a point but this is just a silly one
But free will cannot exist with an omniscient god, because if he knows everything, then everything is predetermined, giving us no free will and also making god evil for allowing all the suffering to happen. And if free will does exist god isnt omniscient
According to the Bible, God never gave man free will. He only gave us the free will to accept the knowledge of actions. However, it reads more like how you would think of a child as innocent – humans didn't know what was good or bad. Of course, the Garden of Eden was never real and the story was just a story.
However, the Bible also states that the reason we have free will is because love and good aren't forced. You can't love someone or perform a good deed if those are your only options. You have to choose to do so. The angels also had free will which is what led to Lucifer and his followers.
I'm not religious anymore, but my parents are still super Catholic. My dad taught Sunday school growing up and still works for a church while my mom is a teacher at a Catholic high school.
Without free will, true worship cannot exist. (If God is God, he certainly has the right to create us for the sole purpose of worshipping him.)
To your latter points, I agree that we know clearly what evil (a.k.a sin) is—sin is anything apart from God's character (e.g. the fruit of the spirit to start).
However, it's not up to us to "get rid" of evil, that's on God, and that's exactly what he did when he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross as a substitute for the punishment we deserve, and when he rose from the grave he signified that substitution was complete. If we truly accept that fact, then God considers us saved ("redeemed"). And, one day Jesus will come back and eliminate evil once and for all.
As to why God allowed evil to enter the world in the first place, well, that's one of the cornerstone discussions of Christian theology, I can't easily summarize that here. In short, a redeemed world can know God's love and worship him more deeply than a world which was never fallen to begin with. (And again, if God is God, he absolutely has the right to create us—and all of creation—for the sole purpose of bringing him glory.) Here's an excellent article that explains this more fully.
Do you believe all this, and if so, why?
What annoying when people who have no grasp of what philosophy about starting saying these statement and expect me to answer them.
Edit: reading the comment is also annoying. When someone mention God, many assume the statement reference their own religion and draw conclusion based on it. I had someone start talking about god doesnt exist because “the proofs” are wrong, but these proofs all driven from his own religion. ( ex christian talking about statement that doesnt make sense in the bible) when I attempt to speak on higher level ( forgot all religions lets talk about god as an entity or thought ) they kept circling around to same points.
Many people dont know how to debate or what they are debating.
Or maybe he’s just a cunt, what with all the murdering people.
Where God is humanist principle, and God is a humanist, then circularly, principle exists without micromanaging intervention in perpetuity.
The old testament is extremely problematic. Israelite hasbara coup. Polytheistic relgion at the time was Canaanite. The descendants of Noah's grandson. El was main god, that Israel is named after, and all other god's were his offspring. Greek rule over the region, had Greeks say that all of the major Canaanite gods were the same as the Greek gods, with El as Zeus. Yahweh was the tribal god of Israelites. But it is basically very easy for any priest to invent a new god, based on narrower factional/fertility needs to collect revenue for rewarding the priest to champion your tribe/goals contrary to humanism.
The problems with old testament start with 10 commandments
There is no god before me (Yahweh), is a coup over El.
"Though shalt not covet/idolatrize" was an insurection cry over Canaanites where Yahweh orders the Israelites to destroy all idols of Canaanites instead of valuing their silver/gold content. El/God had no desire to repress worship, and their priests accepted offerings and sacrifices, so why not idolatry.
"Honour thy father/parents" codifies law at the time that gave parents the right to have the state execute their children for "dishonour".
Just as all Churches today have as mission to maximize their power through alliance with state/authority/hierarchy, so have all religion through time. A cult is simply a religion without state approval. God exists without church corruption. Prayer has no measurable effect, but Abrahamic religions being rooted in a lie could be one explanation. Still, that evil exists, doesn't imply that humanism/principle doesn't exist, just that you individually have the power for evil, and tyranny/autocracy has power because you are deluded to allow/tolerate it, and evil happens from the greed and desperation it fosters. Evil exists because we are too collectively stupid and gullible to organize ourselves around evil.
https://www.naturalfinance.net/2022/11/the-invention-of-truth.html
If this were multiple choice, then I would go with #2.
If you guys pray to me, I promise to notice you and pay attention. Which is more than you can say for any god.
(You have to do it out loud and in front of me though.)
Kneeling bags my nylons.
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