You say "Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability" then claim that "Without us doing some of both [good AND evil], we would likely go extinct.". This is clearly self-refuting isn't it? On one hand God is culpable and on the other hand you say evil is necessary for evolution which is letting god off the hook. — TheMadFool
What do you think of my reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop? — TheMadFool
God is not let off the hook if one believes in such an imaginary entity. He would have created evolution and would be culpable for that formula being good or evil. Most religious blame us while ignoring that we can only be and do what a god would have put into our natures. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
Most religious blame us while ignoring that we can only be and do what a god would have put into our natures. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
Well if evil is NOT evil, then what evils are we blaming (or not) on god (imaginary or not)? — ZhouBoTong
then what evils are we blaming (or not) on god (imaginary or not)? — ZhouBoTong
I can't help but pick on any minor contradictions that I see (I am not even saying the contradictions definitely exist, but they stand out to me). — ZhouBoTong
I said that the evils in our evolution are required if we are to not go extinct. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
problem of evil — TheMadFool
I did not say that evil was not evil. It is, obviously.
I said that the evils in our evolution are required if we are to not go extinct. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
Compare the evil in our extinction with the evils we produce to maintain our evolution and you will see why we have to tolerate the evils that our evolution forces upon us in our seeking the fittest. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
In the way I think, there is no conflict between god and nature/evolution. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
That is why it is true that we live in the best of all possible worlds, given that it is the only possible world. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
If what you describe as "evil" is required to prevent extinction, then it IS something that we ought to do. So by definition, it is NOT evil. — ZhouBoTong
Kind of like a natural evil of necessity; thus, we survived not in spite of our evil and. violence but because of it. Even our cooperation was for a better hunt and kill. — PoeticUniverse
My proposal to the problem of evil and free will:
There is no god or gods. There is no evil. There is no hell or heaven. There is no free will. There is no sin. — god must be atheist
Case closed. Now we can all go home and sit down and eat dinner and go to sleep in peace. — god must be atheist
Not worrying about earning an eternity of suffering in hell via a god's evil nature, — god must be atheist
what it means is that the entire morality shit is designed to control the behaviour of the masses. — god must be atheist
Because the absurd supernatural stuff was arguably not the essence of religion. — joshua
But mostly the masses want civilization. — joshua
I agree absolutely. Religion is just PART of the behaviour modification program. There are other institutions in society that help the same program: law, and social customs. — god must be atheist
I am not blaming religion. I am only saying there is much too much focus on religion, so much so, that we lose our sight of what it is that is really going on. — god must be atheist
True also. Several reasons exist, one is that civilization helps the individual survive easier and more lucratively, second, that the individual can aspire to become king, if not in realistic terms, at least in fantasy. — god must be atheist
This is the problem with religion. It's a blinding force. It saps and taxes the intellectual energy levels of all societies where religion is a prevailing, major social force. — god must be atheist
Ah, OK. I was projecting too much anti-religion on you, it seems. — joshua
God is simply modulating his goodness — TheMadFool
If you have free will, — PhilosophyAttempter
While I agree that it is the only "world" we know of, what do we know of what is possible? — ZhouBoTong
Isn't morality put simply, "how we ought to behave"? — ZhouBoTong
When it comes to moral norms of a religion, would this mean that free will doesn’t actually exist at all? — whatsgoinon
The problem of evil (POE) is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God (see theism)
— Wikipedia — TheMadFool
The problem of evil (as a religious problem) stems from the assumption that "God" is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. I think we should questions the assumptions about God as a starting point for religious philosophy. None of these divine attributes are required in order to have a fundamentally religious outlook or inclination about nature and they give good grounds to doubt the existence of such a god and subsequently of all gods when stated as divine requirements. — prothero
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