TRVKE
>>18666377>Christian enters thread>says this was refuted 20,000 years ago>refuses to elaborate>leaves
>>18666377If everything if ultimately caused by god, then god is the cause of evil and sin.
>>18666377>>18666389>>18666402It should be said that Epicurus didn’t actually deny the existence of God or say he was some kind of demon, rather he argued that “God” was a non-personal and non-interventionist deity who neither demanded worship nor answered prayers. That is the “official” solution to his paradox and is essentially an early form of deism.He also wasn’t even addressing the Abrahamic monotheist conception of God to begin with and grew up in a society that worshipped a pantheon of gods like Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo. His paradox was addressing these gods, he still believed in their existence but argued that they were non-interventionist and didn’t demand worship. Epicurus did this because he was trying to minimize fear of the gods since most people were superstitious and believed the gods would annihilate them for the most mundane of offenses.To summarize Epicurus’ actual views on the divine, he believed that the gods lived in the spaces between worlds (metakosmia), enjoying lives of perfect, undisturbed tranquility. To him, a god who cared about human affairs, listened to prayers, or felt any sort of anger would not be perfectly happy. His actual argument wasn't “therefore, the gods aren’t real”, but rather “therefore, the gods clearly don't care about us, so stop fearing them”. All of this is functionally a form of pagan deism, not atheism.
>>18666408Malevolent is quite a strong word to use if his objective was to keep people from freaking out about Gods
>>18666389The funniest part is that Christianity's answer was stolen from Platonism.
posted it again award
>>18666408>Epicurus did this because he was trying to minimize fear of the gods since most people were superstitious and believed the gods would annihilate them for the most mundane of offenses.Epicurus was based as fuck for that. Trying to teach people that (irrational)fear can be conquered through philosophy and reason
>>18666425Because his paradox was mostly rhetorical
>>18666431religitards couldnt refute it again award
>>18666377has never been refuted.has anyone noticed that when a Christian tries to reason why God needs to do such and such, they are placing conditions on God, and thus ignoring the fact that he is supposed to be onmnipotent? >AH NEEEEEEED MUH EVIL OR GOOD HAS NO MEANINGok then create a universe where good can exist even without the existence of evil
>>18666377OR God does not care about humans.
>>18666408I'll continue to object to your calling Epicureanism a type of "deism" on the basis that, while deism imagines a single non-interventionist creator god, the Epicurean gods: 1. Aren't responsible for creating the world (if they were, they would still be culpable for evil) and 2. Actually do passively influence the world by emitting telepathic signals which humans can pick up and be inspired by, which is how they were supposedly known to exist.I suspect you'll continue repeating your summary because this is like the third time I've objected to it, but I've continued to object because it comes across to me as a dishonest attempt to garner support for what most people mean when they say Deism by associating with Epicureanism, when in fact they're very different, and, as said, most importantly, only Epicureanism is able to somewhat get around the problem of evil.
>>18666535>passively influence the world by emitting telepathic signals*influence the world by passively emitting telepathic signals
>>18666428I mean, at least 40% of Christianity is comprised of things from Greco-Roman thought and religion that they stole and corrupted.
>>18666535Deism is the belief that the divine is non-interventionist.
>>18666854By most accounts, Deism is specifically belief in a *creator God* who doesn't intervene after creation. Such a God is, if anything, worse than the normal theistic God with respect to the problem of evil, because he made a mess and then got up and left instead of doing *something* to try to fix it.
>>18666887I mean I'd rather have a God who just doesn't care than a God who claims to care only to make life worse with his actions
>>18666377As soon as we were kicked out of Eden god cannot prevent evil since is on human's nature yet still overlooks humans to see which one does evil and which one thinks is not worthy to do evil.God is in his heaven, everything is alright in this world.
>>18666508>without the existence of evilDoes evil exist?
>>18667014That would be the Epicurean gods, not the Deist God. I may have been exaggerating when I said it was worse than the "normal" theistic God though, since the God of popular religions does do a lot of questionable stuff.
>>18666377The irony is bever lost on me that we primarily know of this quote through a Christian author.
>>18667015God cries and gets hard imagining people committing sins knowing he is powerless to stop it
>>18666408>rather he argued that “God” was a non-personal and non-interventionist deity who neither demanded worship nor answered prayers.No, he clearly argued that if "God" was neither able nor willing to prevent evil, then why call him God. So his logic would dictate that you are describing nature, not God.
>>18667038It definitely does according to the bible where god talks about how he created evil and it does in practice where people can act with malicious intent.
>>18667015Biblical god intervened regularly after the fall of man to prevent evils great and small, though.
>>18666377the paradox is unanswerable, but why would an ancient greek philosopher argue about an omnipotent single god?
>>18667270To debunk it to open the possibility of many gods or to unify many gods under one house, same reason practitioners of sciences will talk about a theory of everything.
>>18667269Intervened to aid the prophets but not to defeat evil. Even after wiping sodome and that other city off the earth, evil was still among men.Then jesus was born to die for the sins of the people back then until then.
>>18667180Are you white?
>>18667321You are conflating Evil with evil, I clearly said he intervened to prevent evils, not that he finally defeated Evil.
>>18666428The funniest part is you people thinking these common ideas are "owned" and can be "stolen" lmao
>>18666377>then whence cometh evil?Great question. Making this not a paradox, but a simple admission of ignorance. Too easy.
>>18667328God was aid for the prophets, not to prevent evil. Because even after starting humanity anew due the great flood; evil was still on human's DNA.
>>18667354In this particular case it's funny, yes. Because Christianity, while denying pagan heritage and calling old ways demon worshipping, actually imported a lot of ideas from there.
>>18667373Like writing. Or stars. Or get this ... walking. There is no limit to what Christians will steal :(
>>18666377I never made a same thread twice. and I made plenty
>>18667369>evil was still on human's DNA.Yet god intervened regularly to reduce the amount of evil happening and regularly guided his prophets to slaughter evil people in order to tend to that end.
>>18667376No. Like the answer to the Epicurean paradox. Like the concept of trinity. Like the hierarchy of Heavens. Like the God being morally perfect. Theosis. Apophatic theology.You know, actual religious doctrines, not the mundane actions you've mentioned to reduce this argument ad absurdum.
>>18667380That's what I'm saying, bro. Saying what God isn't... that's totally licensed to pagans. Or the idea of becoming holy/divine... pfff you think people just think of that? Across cultures, continents and centuries? No. Stolen. How do we stop them broski?
>>18667380>You know, actual religious doctrinesNo all the nonsense you mentioned is more like codified cognitive dissonance than any kind of actual doctrine that can guide any type of moral behavior.
>>18667373one day platonism woke up only to find that some of its ideas are missing. somebody must have stolen them.... you can only copy ideas, not steal them.
>>18667379>>18667369>>18667321>>18667269all of the interventions in the old testament were to direct history in that region of the world to lead up to the Messiah (Jesus); it's very obvious in retrospect when you look at it through this lens, and if you read the entire Bible from start to finish in one sitting with this knowledge ahead of time it seems really obviously like a continuous narrative.God is intervening directly and exterminating nations and people left and right in the old testament, not at random, but because said people are a direct existential threat to the formation and maintenance of the people/nation that will usher in the Messiah (Israel) or to the genealogical line itself e.g. when God straight up just kills Onan on the spot for intentionally pulling out and wasting his seed not giving his brother's widow a child just so that he can take the inheritance (this happens because that woman's descendents later produce King David/the Davidic line). Almost every intervention from God in the old testament is like this; the infamous passages where he is really harsh with the Israelites in the wilderness and ordering them to eviscerate immediate threats and surrounding nations is for this same reason.One of the more eye-opening things to dwell on in regards to this is that until Jesus, everyone who died apparently went to Sheol/Hades regardless of who they were and since Paul says in the epistles that Jesus ministered to all of the souls in Hades (the harrowing of hell) this means that everyone who died in the old testament, even people like Nebuchadnezzar, the kings of Tyre, the Amalekites etc likely had the chance to accept the gospel when Jesus descended into the underworld and conquered death.
>>18667413You can also think of them, seeing that most religious tropes are extremely common, especially when shaped by related languages.
>>18667417>to lead up to the Messiah (Jesus)Sure and it not like the point of the Messiah was to fight against evil and deliver the world from sin or anything.
>>18666428ironic considering Plato already says something similar to >>18666408 in Euthyphro
>>18667379Humans were slaughtering and doing more perverse things among themselves even after the great flood. Killing is not a god thing but a human thing.
>>18666389True. I agree with this.
