>>24697616
unironically book of the new sun. evil is necessary to push maximum moral development. not to really get into the philosophy of what exactly good or evil is in the presence or not of God, but at least in this book, it's a necessary substrate for evolution.

>>24697616
Oh no, the covid19 outbreak! The worst thing that could happen!

>>24697633
i can't even imagine what living in your head must be like, where you can't comprehend even the slightest nuance, that is, something being bad, but not the worst thing to ever happen
it's like trying to imagine what it's like to be a dog, except i'm pretty sure even a dog would grasp this concept
>>24697621
>evil is necessary
can we ever call anything "necessary" when talking about an all-powerful being?

>>24697616
Heraclitus as well as Plato’s Phaedo have evil as a subsequent consequence of pleasure. The world exists as both beauty and discord in perfect opposition/ or alignment depending on how you look at it and pleasure and pain feed off one another.

Paraphrase: stupid was Homer when he said that it would be better for all strife to disappear

>>24697664
>i can't even imagine what living in your head must be like, where you can't comprehend even the slightest nuance, that is, something being bad, but not the worst thing to ever happen
That's what it's like talking to someone who can't understand the nuance of negative things happening within God's domain.

>>24697616
The Book of Job. God lays it all out in the whirlwind speech. Everything else is just mental gymnastics.

God can make a rock so heavy he cant lift it and still lift it and is immanent in the creation that cannot contain him but he cant solve evil nope sorry.

>>24697935
>God lays it all out in the whirlwind speech
He did a piss poor job of it.

>>24697616
good can't exist without evil, etc.

>>24697616
Evil doesn't exist. It's purely a social construct. Free will has been proven not to exist, both logically and empirically.

>>24697951
I could explain, but that requires effort posting and I dont have the time now.

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>>24697616
Free Will?
I don't even know him

>>24697616
the problem of evil only exists on the presumption that a personal intelligent god exists and he is also omnibenevolent and omnipotent which not only no one outside of larpers takes seriously but its not even biblical.

>>24697977
Neither does good

There is nothing that can explain it. God didn't just create the universe, he created the rules. He could've created rules where just because there is no evil doesnt mean there is no balance, or good, or whatever other argumentative variable you want to put here. We can infer that paradoxes are only put in place because of him. He could solve them whenever he wants.

If he truly cant do that, and evil needs to exist for the world to function, then he is not all-powerful and because he stated he is all-powerful and knowingly lied, he is not all-good.

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Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?

>>24698104
>the UN hired a Christian fundie to be the Unity chaplain

>>24697664
God may not be totally, absolutely omnipotent. He may be working within some limit. Not really a christian myself, but it is possible and valid. I think BOTNS comes to a similar conclusion although I'm not sure. What else can you make of all these covert machinations of powerful beings in conflict with each other?

>>24697633
Lol
>>24697664
Fag.

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Engrams, body thetans, and implants. Admit you don't have a better explanation.

>>24697621
Fpbp
>>24697664
>can we ever call anything "necessary" when talking about an all-powerful being?
Yes, as He is free to build a world in which necessity constrains whatever he wishes it to.

>>24698077
Right

>>24697616
evil is a subset of good.

>>24697616
Evil doesn't exist, there are just lesser and greater goods (we call lesser goods evil btw).

>>24697616
Mad made covid. God gives man free will because He loves us so :)

>>24697616
I reject the premise that evil exists.

>>24697977
>Evil doesn't exist. It's purely a social construct.
Based and soience-pilled.
There's no evil. There's just a flow of particles/energy.

>>24697621
Do you think that being raped as a child contributes to moral development?

>>24699197
Thanks be to God that I have the freedom to mangle your genitals with a razor blade. What a gift

I'm an atheist but I never understood le problem of evil.
Why does god have an obligation to help us just because he can?

>>24699939
It's tied up with the idea that God loves us. If you loved someone and they were being tortured in front of you and you had all the power to stop it but instead you just sat there and watched, that I think is the essence of the problem.

The only reasonable answer is that either God doesn't care about us or his ways are beyond our understanding. Either way the reality of evil and suffering makes the idea of an all good and loving God incompatible with the world as we experience it.

As a former Christian I can say that nobody in the history of Christendom or anywhere in the scriptures is there an answer to this issue because there is no answer. Or, rather, the answer is that we are not being told the full story and are playing without a full deck of cards. Anyways, when you're in your hour of darkness and call out to God to show you that he loves you and there is nothing but silence you will understand what it means to face the problem of evil

>>24699927
we certainly exist in an era where most of society sees this as evil and this was not always the case. same thing with chattel slavery. these evils on a long enough time line ultimately serve the good of humanity, which is the point i was making. i'm not sure if you've read botns or not.

>>24697977
>>24699131
>>24699026
Refuted by Jung in Aion

>>24699957
>when you're in your hour of darkness and call out to God to show you that he loves you and there is nothing but silence you will understand what it means to face the problem of evil
this is called 'the dark night of the soul'. either you come out of it a saint, or you come out of it insane.

>>24699963
I've known too many people, myself included, whose lives have been irreversibly destroyed and permanently crippled by sexual abuse as children. You don't know what the fuck you are talking about and I hope you get falsely accused of paedophilia and stabbed to death with a screwdriver you cunt

>>24699983
your trauma is something i wouldn't even begin to understand and it is tragic that you had to experience that. i pray that you overcome the damage as best you can and possibly one day use it as a source of strength to be a relatable support structure to other victims in need of healing.

>>24697616
Orthohoes and dostoslopsky

>>24700001
It is not a source of strength. I live in spite of what happened to me. I survived it and I survived a lot more that came afterwards. And I did it myself because when the moment of truth came and I called to God and said "God I don't know what will become of me! God, I need you to tell me that you love me!" Nothing happened. And things got worse from then on. There was no redemption or salvation or hope. The only reason I'm still alive is because I did it my fucking self and I don't care what God's sick and twisted reasons are. He wasn't there. When it really mattered he wasn't there. And I came to realise that he never was

>>24700021
if no one has ever told you this, let me be the first; you are incredibly strong and courageous and the fact that you've managed to regain order in your life makes you a beacon of hope to victims everywhere. have you ever attended support groups for this kind of thing? you could do some truly good work.

>>24700062
I've never been to anything csa related but I will be attending a support group for young people with addictions next week (I'm addicted to alcohol and I'm going to help maintain my sobriety, today is day 17 being dry) and I've also done a little group therapy in the mental hospital a couple of times.

>>24697616
Good people return their shopping carts. Evil people don't. Simple as.

>>24699972
*either you come out of it a non-believer, or you come out of it insane.

>>24697616
I like presuppositional apologetics because it pisses off atheists.

>>24700071
alcoholism is something, unfortunately, i am very familiar with. that is amazing to hear! the things i've noticed to really help are staying busy and avoiding the triggers surrounding the times when you'd want to drink, taking time to pray or meditate, 30 mins of working out or walking, occupying myself with little projects whether it be cooking, building something or creating something in a game, and then making my best effort to do something nice for someone each day.

>>24697616
>Evil is not merely an absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others. It is a terrible reality, mysterious and frightening.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul06/p6devil.htm
Catholics mostly believe in "privation theory of evil" which states that evil is the absence of some good. I think that's total hog and that evil be real, on purpose, and trying to make all creation have a bad time.
>>24699972
>this is called 'the dark night of the soul'. either you come out of it a saint, or you come out of it insane.
No. The "dark night of the soul" isn't asking God for love but recognizing that human's mental concepts are basically useless in understanding God's love.
>>24700071
>>24700021
>>24699983
FWIW trauma and theological error have the same impact on your psyche. If you forgive who did it to you and forgive them for what they did to you then you resolve the issue and healing begins quickly thereafter (shadow tremors persist but mental distortions evaporate relatively quickly).
>irreversibly
This is just the trauma talking. The point of sexual abuse is to basically give someone the sensation of either being permanently broken or permanently fractured so that the abuse can replicate itself via them. The point of this mental fracturing is so that you can make someone act good to someone who does evil to them and not recognize that it is evil. If you don't accept the conditioning of being broken (often tricking or shocking the victim into repressing the memory will permanently create a "trauma signature" such that they don't know they are being abused even after they have repressed it--the news does this with violent images so that your addiction to it is not viewed as trauma bonding but it is) then the second best thing is to make you enslaved to bitterness with a sense of "permanent violation" that can "never be undone." The basic fact is that the sex act stopped the second the sex act stopped; scars are not people and yes the body does remember the trauma but the key here is the devil wants you to conflate those scars with the person who did it and those same scars or wounds with not being able to be healed. Likely, the physical wounds are already gone and even if you have permanent markings they have factually no difference than scars from playing as a kid on the playground; the only difference is the symbolic value we give them because of the intent of the abuser. The basic truth is that all child sexual predators are morons. 1) It's not pleasurable (adult, female vagina is literally designed for the penis). 2) It's definitionally not sustainable. 3) It's wildly high risk. From a practical standpoint it's idiotic so what's left is just the dotards who reproduce their own trauma or low lifes who are so self-obsessed to pursue their own worthless fantasies. The point is to get you to lie to yourself about ultimately Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary via your body.

>>24699963
Germans were always against child rape, Tacitus mentions them. Slavery was historically ones enemies.

>>24700279
>>24699983
>>24700021
>>24700071
cont.
What this practically looks like is that you have demonic, or evil power, knowingly over anyone who has any of the following:
>unhealed trauma
>substantial theological error
>not forgiven people
>sizeable sexual sins
>other large sins such as theft
In Catholicism, a state of grace means the Holy Spirit indwells in your soul. What this means is that the pawns of the devil, cringe lords and otherwise, cannot trick you to subject you to evil. Ultimately, trauma is trying to say to you that this state of being is impossible because God gave you a "rape-able" body. This is a lie. The basic issue is not free will, but rather that those who do evil are as much victims as anyone who receives the evil, and in a moral sense, they are in a far worse situation and thus are almost the ultimate victims of themselves. In the final analysis, the devil is a fool and so are all of his minions. Jesus Christ is the Truth that repels this and no philosophy of free will or evil will change that. Ultimately, many people cannot say what evil is perfectly but I will tell you: Evil is parasitical contradiction. Two satanists go to see a mentor to (per Charles Williams) steal the Holy Grail or destroy it. One says it has so much power we must use it the other says its too powerful so we must destroy it. The mentor supports both of them because they disagree. The only goal of evil is to sadistically torture someone for all eternity in Hell and the reward for those you lie and harm enough is that you can rule over them in Hell if they fall too.
>>24700289
That anon is complaining about trauma culture. There are fair critiques of trauma culture but the main issue is that people who want to torture their abusers as vengeance by sending them to some dirty cell are often equally as deranged as the abusers themselves.

>>24700279
I get what you are saying but you don't know the specifics of what happened to me. I was molested by my best friend when I was 12 because (and I am 100% convinced of this) that he was simply acting out something that had been done to him by an actual abuser. So I have never held any hard feelings against him and I have long since forgiven him for what he did (especially since I know for a fact that he got it much worse than what he did to me). So I don't feel like I'm the victim of an evil person but rather more a victim of the ugliness of the world. Regardless that one event had a devastating effect on me and my life. Because of the negative behaviours I developed as a result of it I was bullied and was effectively the most unpopular person in my school. I suffered suicidal ideation and hatred against everyone and everything since I was 12 years old. Then when I was 16, due to something related to the person who abused me I suffered a psychotic break and was actively psychotic for a year before being diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was 18. When I was 19 I was in the mental hospital for two weeks because I was suicidal because my voices were trying to get me to kill people. My dad died suddenly and for no real reason later that year. This past year ever since the love of my life left me I have had frequent psychosis and suicidal depression, worsened by alcoholism which I developed this past year as a negative coping mechanism. This is all on top of the fact that I nearly died several times as a small child and have never felt a part of all of this, this life.

Can you tell me what the reason is that I've had to suffer all my life? I asked God and he wasn't interested in sharing. He couldn't be bothered to let me know that he's with me in my suffering. If I'm not on my own then he's made me feel as if I am. I can't see the reason for it and I just refuse to accept it any longer.

>>24697616
I find it interesting when people pretend that the problen of evil has been swept under the rug and is some huge gotcha, when even the Bible contains a whole book about it (Job).
>God gives the devil express permission to kill Job's family and servants, destroy all his property, and inflict him with the worst diseases possible without killing him.
>the majority of the book is poetry about the nature of earthly suffering, and how God's designs involve horrors and suffering beyond human comprehension with the ultimate goal to bring about eternal goodness and joy beyond comprehension.
Surely someone on a literature board can understand how suffering plays a natural role in the development of the story and characters, how when the author gives someone an illness or has then get robbed or something it isn't out of cruelty but rather to further the story and play a part in bringing about the author's ultimate design.
>>24697621
Based.
The Divine Comedy is also really good.

>>24697616
Camus deals with it perfectly in his novel The Plague. Anyone who believes evil and suffering are part of God's plan must be willing to walk into a children's cancer ward filled with dying children in extreme agony and smile, proclaiming this scene is God's will, and since God's will is ultimately good, the sick, suffering, dying children is actually a good thing and they, themselves, also will it to happen, they want it to happen, they are glad it is happening. This is the attitude you MUST adopt if you try to rehabilitate evil and suffering as actually a good and necessary thing. Most proponents don't really have that kind of conviction, which is good because it is also a kind of maximal moral relativism. Why punish evil people? God is supposedly planning an exactly proportional punishment in the final analysis, so there's no need for law or morals. Why abstain from doing evil yourself? After all, evil is part of God's plan for the world and it is a necessary part of the world, you are just contributing to that necessity. This is always the problem when you try to turn bad things into actually secretly good things, you have to adopt the viewpoint that evil is good, that instead of finding a silver lining, the whole rain cloud is silver. It's a sickness of the mind.

>>24700325
>Can you tell me what the reason is that I've had to suffer all my life? I asked God and he wasn't interested in sharing. He couldn't be bothered to let me know that he's with me in my suffering. If I'm not on my own then he's made me feel as if I am. I can't see the reason for it and I just refuse to accept it any longer.
Why do you want to know? If a perfectly logical explanation for it was laid out infront of you would you accept it? Should God or the universe have consulted you on how you would suffer? Should God or the universe adhere to your judgment over theirs?

>>24700487
>Should God or the universe have consulted you on how you would suffer?
NTA, but... uhh.... YES. Otherwise he is a sadistic sick fucker who enjoys putting people through utter torment and despair for his own pleasure.

>>24700511
And who the fuck are you? Are you so wise that you can construct the universe and make it perfect? Are you so powerful that God will enter into a negotiation with you? Will he cede to your power and make this world and life painless for you? Can you comprehend what perfect and everlasting happiness is? What is the impact of this on others? Can your happiness exist without other people suffering?

No one really knows the true nature or will of God, but thinking he owes you or anyone else an answer is absurd.

>>24697977
Sure thing, Satan

>>24700532
(NTA) If we are to God like an ant is to us, where we can't understand him or be sure about his motives toward us, then we should make like ants and treat him mainly as obstacle to be worked around rather than a perfectly good parent to be slavishly devoted to.

>>24697616
A Machiavellian reading of Cornelius Van Til's "Defense Of The Faith". Evil is not only incoherent, but its quality of incoherence is a consequence of modern ideologies attempts to make natural law out of pure reason. Evil is a result of the secularism.

>>24700552
If youre a christcuck, this is a major problem and they have produced a massive amount of cope over centuries to get around it. Otherwise, you do you. Don't like what you have been through, shrug off God entirely and do what you can to make it through life. Personally, I believe in a God and I just don't bother asking him these things. I just completely surrender to his will and move on in life. No worship, prayers, or idols, just acceptance of his will.

>>24700532
Every word you post drips with slave mentality. "How dare you question the master! How dare you try to think for yourself! Suffer and obey, SLAVE!" No one is convinced. Keep your mental illness to yourself.

>>24700624
You're free to kill yourself anytime. Otherwise find a way to cope being gods bitch your entire life

>>24700636
(NTA) The most sensible way to cope imo is to just not personify the universe (or the whatsit that is the source of the universe) so you don't have to engage in a weird BDSM kink with it.

>>24700662
I understand taking the atheist perspective on this, up to a point. Just call the universe and not make it some big entity. However, not believing in any sort of higher power is something I dont understand. If we are the best thing this universe has spat out, thats a sad and pathetic thought

>>24700662
>The most sensible way to cope imo is to just not personify the universe
Yeah I don't really get why people, especially yahwehcels, are so hung up on God being friendly chungus. I get that it's a comfort thing, but life in our universe is quite indifferent (and that's ok)

>>24700305
is not
>>24700487.
>>24700325
>Can you tell me what the reason is that I've had to suffer all my life?
Nope. Candidly, your case seems like a ton of demons. Look up "Lay deliverance prayers by Fr. Ripperger" or get the St. Michael App.
>being molested at 12
Very unfun
>Bad behavior
I mean assess how much you consented here but unless it's molesting other people it'a nbd
>bullied
Sucks of course, don't endorse and very bad
>alcoholic
Can happen if predisposed in your situation
>suicidal
Very in the cards and possible
>psych ward and voices
Demons alert full activate. You might have been cursed, victim of generational demons, and or something else. Your reaction, in my eyes, doesn't fit your situation per se (could be wrong) unless you were bullied for sexual misconduct at school then it makes sense almost but that leap to schizophrenia is demons imo. Ask Jesus to cover you in His Most Precious Blood and St. Mary Queen of Angels to protect you and guide you to safety. You can just half mentally say these prayers but will them and hopefully that helps.
>>24700469
>Christians believe kids with cancer is good
Sickness is caused by sin and as such is not good. God permits bads things because... oh wait... does Jesus promise an eternally happy afterlife despite and inspite of our sins?!?!?!? Wow. Those kids with cancer will surely just go right to Hell. Or. Huh, maybe they won't? What if God Himself will make it up to them?
>some theologian said unbaptized kids go to limbo hell nonsense
Lol not Jesus, not Church teaching, and not my belief

>>24700803
Obviously don't take this advice as replacing medical advice but supplementing but >>24700325 it doesn't seem enough to go to the psych ward without either biological underlying issues or demons. Could be wrong but just my read from knowing victims of CSA. You may want to ask too for God to reveal any repressed memories you have

>>24700636
God doesn't exist, yet you are intent on imagining a cosmic daddy figure that you then get to be his bitch. Now there is an unpleasant glimpse into your psyche!

>>24700680
Dude just straight up admits reality seems unpleasant so he is just going to make up something that makes him feel better. Wild that people just come out and say stuff like that.

>>24700803
>Sickness is caused by sin and as such is not good. God permits bads things because... oh wait... does Jesus promise an eternally happy afterlife despite and inspite of our sins?!?!?!? Wow. Those kids with cancer will surely just go right to Hell. Or. Huh, maybe they won't? What if God Himself will make it up to them?
See how readily they admit it? The kids dying of cancer isn't that bad, in fact, they should die quicker so they get to heaven and enjoy their reward faster. This is the mind on religion.

>>24697977
maybe evil is just the absence of good

>>24701156
Too subjective and prone to hypocrisy. You aren't capable of thinking about these things rationally. You need to be told what to think. If you feel otherwise then shut up and go back to your shitbox or objectively test this.

>>24701120
>>24701123
>*burp* God doesn't exist Morty...we are all space dust and star farts....wubbuldubbuz

>>24701216
>you can't say god's fake because that's le cringe

>>24698056
Happy Friday! How about now?

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>>24701216
>"God is real and, thankfully, I was born in exactly the right conditions to maximally benefit from this while the majority of the human race is led astray by false gods or atheism. This belief definitely has nothing to do with death anxiety or the childish wish to have a permanent father figure above me."

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>blaming God for something humans chose to do of their own free will

>>24697621
>but at least in this book, it's a necessary substrate for evolution
Alright you guys win, I'll read Wolfe.

>>24698104
Alfred E Neuman looking ahh nigga

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>>24701317
>"God absolutely doesn't exist. Sure, the majority of the great minds throughout history determined that God was necessary, and organized their lives around contemplation and "becoming like on to God," from Plato to Avicenna, to Shankara, to Aristotle, to Aquinas, to Al Farabi, to Maximus the Confessor, etc. Sure, these were people who had mastered their appetites through ascetic labors and who were considered supremely wise and even saintly by both low born villagers and educated aristocrats, as well as their fellow contemplatives, and who were sought out for guidance. But I don't listen to any of these saints and sages. Instead, I listen to a bunch of empiricists with absolutely no claim to moral excellence nor any claim to having overcome the passions' and appetites' hold on reason. These guys they tell me that nothing is truly good or bad (so that everything I do is fine) and they also tell me that there is no God and that I never need to feel guilty about anything ever because it's all equally good (or not good). They also generally say that being a self-interested egoist is the best thing ever because it makes GDP go up so we can consoom more. But this choice is absolutely not because I feel guilty about my own vice and wasted potential, rather it is because I use the cold, hard, dispassionate reason of science, which I can achieve simply by reading majority opinions with absolutely no ascetic labors and spiritual exercises (despite every sage of East and West saying these are actually essential for unbiased reason). I am just being scientific by dogmatically holding to empiricism."

Arguments from psychoanalysis are incredibly easy.

>>24701233
Sure. Thread is still up and Job is my favorite piece of literature so why not.

Job is widely misunderstood and the biggest reason for that is because confuse a narrative device for the core story. People focus on the bet between Yahweh and the Adversary and Yahweh giving Job back everything He took and more. Lost in all of this is that this story makes up three chapters of the forty two chapter book and was likely taken from another folk tale long before the bulk of the book.

The main portion of Job is a dialogue between Job and his accusers, as well as speeches from Elihu and the whirlwind. Not only is there no direct reference to the bet or any of Job's afflictions in these dialogues, the message seems to contradict the simple convenience of the narrative it lifts from.

We'll start with the dialogues beginning in Chapter 3. Job gives a speech that is something I always read when I am in my most depressed states. In it, Job expresses how miserable he is with incredible poetry. He is past wishing to simply die. He wishes that he never existed at all. He curses the day he was born and the night he was conceived.

From there, Job's accusers answer him. What ensues is a poetic rap battle between the accusers and Job countering them. They all discuss where wisdom can be found and that Yahweh would never punish the innocent. Job then professes his innocence and expresses his desire to put Yahweh on trial to answer for how he has punished him.

This goes on through a few cycles and as the speeches are culminating, the original text becomes damaged and it is unclear who is actually speaking. At Chapter 28, the KJV says Job is speaking, but most contemporary scholars agree that it is definitely not Job speaking and possibly a narrator or one of the accusers. This chapter is interesting because it comes off as something Yahweh would say, but is completely refuted in the whirlwind speech. Chapter 28 talks of how man has brought light to the world, upended mountains, claimed dominion over nature, and all precious things his eyes have seen, but wisdom is unknown to him. God grasps wisdom away from man and it cannot be bought for any amount of gold. It finishes with a simple message that is strange for Job 'Look, fear of the Master, that is wisdom, and the shunning of evil is insight'

>>24701425
Pt 2

Now we come the whirlwind speech. Job finally gets his opportunity ask Yahweh to answer for his suffering; Job puts Yahweh on trial, but Yahweh flips this back on Job. Yahweh says he will answer Job's question, but first Job needs to answer his questions. For the next four chapter, Yahweh shows how ignorant Job is about creation and how powerless he is. Job cannot answer any questions about how the world was created, the weather works, or the nature of animals. Job knows he has no power over Leviathan or any other mystical beasts that Yahweh can make grovel at his feet. Job merely cowers and accepts Yahweh's power and judgment.

Its worth noting, Yahweh does not command Job to do anything in the speech, in fact he does the opposite. He asks Job a bunch of questions. These questions highlight Job ignorance of the world around him. Yahweh does this to answer Job's question of where wisdom is. Instead of grasping it away, wisdom exists right in front of Job and he cannot see it.

The whirlwind speech is there to demonstrate how ignorant man is of everything around him, yet he wants an explanation of something far more complex. If you can't understand how the weather works or why the eagle nests on a certain mountain, how the fuck are you going understand the problem of suffering? Job is put in his place. He realizes that the created has no control and cannot comprehend the will of the creator. Its not something he wants to hear, but then again Yahweh makes no demands of Job. He does not demand Job worship him or offer sacrifice.

This answer will piss off anyone who believes in a benevolent and omnipotent god, but that is a problem for christcucks. Yahweh doesn't need to explain shit and why should he? Do you need to explain to your dog why he needs to go to the vet? Can you even do that, would the dog understand? God does things his way, why does he need to consult his creations about what he is doing? If you have a problem with this, fine don't believe in God, what does he care?

>>24697621
Real interesting suggestion, thanks anon might have to get into him now.
There’s an interesting strain of thought in the Christian mystic Jakob Boehme, also, suggesting he thought the Fall of Humanity, as in the Genesis myth, was a necessary stage of the universe, even perhaps ultimately for the best, as it necessitated God’s redemption of the universe and fallen humanity by the direct incarnation of God in humanity, and the ultimate redeemed stage perhaps being even greater than what we would’ve had without the Fall. A deepening of humanity’s consciousness, a more sophisticated psyche and soul having gone through this dialectic, choosing the Good over Evil out of actual freewill, not just because of a state of innocence and total unknowing or incapability of even the possibility of sin.
It is pretty heavyhanded that what causes the Fall is a fruit giving one “knowledge of good and evil”, suggesting that beforehand there was no knowledge of that, no distinction.
I myself prefer to see it more as cosmic allegory, similar to some other cosmogonies. In Taoist cosmogony, for example, the universe is in the state of Void, Wuji, before its splitting into opposites, Yin and Yang, negative and positive, with this then further giving birth to “the 10,000 things” (all manifested reality). The Kabbalah has the limitless Ein Sof at the beginning (lit. “Without End”, the Eternal), which emanates Ohr Ein Sof (the Light of Ein Sof), symbolically in Kether, the Crown of the Tree of Life, then splitting into the duality/opposites of Binah and Chokhmah, themselves further manifesting into the two pillars of the Tree of Life which also represent opposites (masculine and feminine, the pillars of mercy and severity), the Tree of Life itself representing the entire universe and all processes in it. Ein Sof is also often spoken of apophatically, through a theology of negation, hence again a similarity to this idea of the Void birthing all, with a split into duality, too.

I’m bloviating, but I think there’s an interestingly similar system here. Pre-creation is a state of Void, and to go from Void to the Created Universe requires this bifurcation into opposites. The “Fall” might just represent that the creation of the material universe, and consciousnesses embodied within it to experience that universe, requires this play of opposites. Going even before the Adam and Eve story to God creating the universe himself, you have the world being “Tohu wa-bohu” at start in Hebrew, “without form and void”, so some of these bits of the Kabbalah don’t just come from nowhere, and I think can shed light on some of Christian theology or mysticism inasmuch as the Torah is a shared source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohu_wa-bohu

>>24701448
Short follow-up, since another effort poster is talking about Job, whose posts I’ll read in more detail soon, but seeing the Book of Job jogged my memory:
The Book of Job also explicitly has God and Satan being in cahoots on something. So I again consider that God is beyond most lukewarm or normie believers’ conception of Him, God is what allows Satan, or evil, to exist, and perhaps even uses this evil (severity, harshness, suffering) as the other arm of His at times. Beyond good and evil.
Frightening, maybe, but not much more than totally atheistic, materialistic, annihilationistic nihilism just viewing us as random blips shat out by a strictly physical universe with no ultimate cosmic purpose to it all, no metaphysical guidelines or truths.

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>>24701430
>These questions highlight Job ignorance of the world around him. Yahweh does this to answer Job's question of where wisdom is. Instead of grasping it away, wisdom exists right in front of Job and he cannot see it.

>For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice. Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

>Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Romans 1

One could as well apply this to today's empiricist, but perhaps also the nominalists who declared the univocity of being, and all those who proclaim that God is just one being among many, most powerful, but defined by what God is not. Yet God is not so, for He is "within everything, yet contained in nothing," and more inward to us than our innermost self. It is God in which we "live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

>>24701156
Thanks, Augustine.

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>>24701459
The classical view is of evil as privation. Evil is slide towards multiplicity, and eventually, nothingness. It is the curvetas in se, the soul's turning away from the true source of all goodness. On the classical view, good is just being qua desirable, and our difficulties spring from having the wrong loves. We love the unworthy more than the worthy, the ugly more than the truly beautiful. Love of finite things derails the erotic ascent upwards. The cosmos is a ladder leading back to God, all things moving in the cycle of exitus et reditus.

As Dante puts it to open the Paradiso:

The glory of Him who moveth everything
Doth penetrate the universe, and shine
In one part more and in another less.

However, suffering is not illusory. It is the real cost for a race that killed God. The goal is the the elimination of suffering (one must suffer to tame the passions and appetites and direct them upwards). We suffer gladly for others. Rather, suffering is transfigured, just as the body and bodily desires are not left behind, but transfigured a deified.

Also: >>24697616
Pic related is a classic on suffering and evil, written by a man who had lost everything for doing the right thing and was nearing his grizzly execution.

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>>24701571
Or for a more practical, less theoretical look.

>The foul fiend whispered praise into the heart of an ascetic who was striving for blessed humility,
but by divine inspiration he contrived to conquer the guile of the spirits by a pious ruse. He rose and
wrote on the wall of his cell the names of the highest virtues in order, that is: perfect love, angelic
humility, pure prayer, inviolable chastity and others like these. And so when thoughts of vainglory
began to praise him, he said to them: ‘Let us go and be judged.’ Then, going to the wall, he read the
names and cried to himself: ‘When you possess all these, then you will know how far you still are from
God!’


As Saint Maximus says in the Centuries on Love:

>Nothing created by God is evil. It is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but unchastity, not material things but avarice, not glory but vainglory. It is only the misuse of things that is evil, not the things themselves.

Or as Saint Isaac of Nineveh puts it in the Ascetical Homilies:

The world" is the general name for all the passions. When we wish to call the passions by a common name, we call them the world. But when we wish to distinguish them by their special names, we call them passions. The passions are the following: love of riches, desire for possessions, bodily pleasure from which comes sexual passion, love of honor which gives rise to envy, lust for power, arrogance and pride of position, the craving to adorn oneself with luxurious clothes and vain ornaments, the itch for human glory which is a source of rancor and resentment, and physical fear.

Where these passions cease to be active, there the world is dead…. Someone has said of the Saints that while alive they were dead; for though living in the flesh, they did not live for the flesh. See for which of these passions you are alive. Then you will know how far you are dead to it.

Or as Origen tells us in On Prayer:

>Good is one; many are the base. Truth is one; many are the false. True righteousness is one; many are the states
that act it as a part. God’s wisdom is one; many are the wisdoms of this age and of the rulers of this age which come to nought. The word of God is one, but many are the words alien to God.

>>24701130
>The kids dying of cancer isn't that bad
Did you die as a kid from cancer? Have you ever volunteered there?

what if god made a contract with the devil so the devil gave us free will but it meant we could be evil and the devil is the ruler of the world and god has to watch and seethe but tries to steer his children the right way #hiddenhandinterview.........

>>24697616
don't be a cuck and picture God as a personality. God has divinely ordained the world. Sickness is a part of it. It's not a test, but you're no longer in Eden either, chud. This is the ground from which we were made and to which we will return. Such is life. The temporality of life in mortality--which takes many form, but is inherent to the body; not as a property, but as the body itself--is a prerequisite for any discovery, any knowledge of self. The knowledge of man is passing, both of him and from him.
God is neither aware nor unwilling. The question of the divine is simply wrong. It's a non-issue since God is only personal insofar as we imagine Him to be present. The world is His creation--to us! It's not His creation to Himself. God is not someone or something nor is He doing anything, to which end he would be able, knowing, or present. This knowledge, ability, or presence is our confrontation with God at any moment we imagine. Are you genuinely imagining a kingdom in heaven with a bearded old man sitting in a golden chair? Are you falling for Joseph's temptation, are you actually personalizing the Creator and His creation? The beginning, the way, and the end. That is God. This personal confrontation is important, but it is not defining. It's the pillar of your faith, but not faith in and of itself. We cannot know what comes after death. These are clear and logically more fundamental tenents than anything described by people in a people's story of how they were confronted with God. The scripture is not some holy axiom like in Islam. It's a guide, an introduction to the faith as it was lived by others, and most notable as it was lived by Jesus Christ. You can't play a numbers game with a story. You can't analyze the text for truths. Are you actually that infantile?
The whole epicurian dilemma is just for midwits and category wanking Gnostics.

>>24697616
We want it, we get it.
It's here because so many of us want it. We are here because we want to be.

Many of us want to solve evil without introducing certain elements (joy, honesty, violence) and thus we don't solve it. This inspires evolution and brings us to high difficulty.

However, evil is an ouroboros. It can prolong its life cycle with parasitism, and when it's grown to it's peak it can be mistaken for Demiurge.

>>24700803
>Sickness is caused by sin and as such is not good.
Not biblical.

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil, I the Lord do all these things" (KJV).
>>24700803
Who created demons?

>>24701728
>God is neither aware
So god is not all knowing then. Heresy.
Also, I thought jesus was god and human?

>>24697977
Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil, I the Lord do all these things" (KJV).

>>24697621
This world obviously doesn't maximise moral development.

How can you have a consistent and coherent standard for evil within a secular paradigm

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>>24697616
>unaware but caused it

>>24702128
>Not biblical

Yes it is, which is why it is and was the doctrine of all churches East and West for 1,500+ years. Pulling a *translation* out of context (where God is clearly saying He creates evil for wicked men, not evil per se) is not a good counter. No one thought God was evil until Calvin (who I am pretty sure was not confused and vice addled like Luther, but a full on Satan worshiper). No other Christians decided "the solution to the problem of evil is that God is evil, pure, inscrutable, arbitrary malevolence except for a random few he spares just to showcase his own demonic powers." Calvinism is hersey.

>>24702196
I cognise the form of the good, no need for a God.

>>24702250
I cognise it differently. I think it's moral to rape you. Is it?

>>24698117
I agree. The idea that God is (and *must* be, that's the really annoying detail) beyond any even conceivable limitation is a ridiculous and juvenile concept. Being supreme doesn't mean you have no limitations, it just means you are in charge. You can have the most or even all of the power within a system, and still be limited by what the system itself is. There can be, and almost certainly *are* major and fundamental limitations inherent in reality itself, that are not controlled by man or God.

I honestly think that this autistic concept drives a lot of people away from religion, you'd have to be low IQ and/or really committed to ignoring the obvious issues with it for your religious view to be able to survive such a shaky foundation without making some sort of change. It's really quite simple- If God is perfect and completely, directly in charge with no limitations whatsoever, then the whole universe would be perfect without exception. If you disagree with the premise that the universe is perfect without exception, then there is something wrong in the preceding statements.

>>24699939
Only an atheist would be capable of this level of coldness and autism.

>>24702383
Is it if God says so? With any theistic framework, that's even a form of moral realism, God's unchanging nature is basically the form of the good. The more you deviate from that, the more you have a form of subjectivism, just backed by extreme force.

>>24702400
Where do those limitations come from? On the Christian view there was no other reality before God.

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I think a lot of you just aren't getting this-

A lot of religions assert that God allows reality to be an imperfect mess with some amount of evil (or if you reject the terminology- suffering, 'badness', etc.) because it's the only way to give humans the opportunity to strive to fulfillment, faith or wisdom through their own free will, which ultimately creates the highest good. I personally agree with this premise.

What you're failing to understand is that means that God couldn't or wouldn't just skip directly to the end result of the highest good without needing to first allow evil to exist. This showcases a limitation on either his power or willingness to exclusively do good- he created a structure that allows for the highest good, but he didn't do it without also allowing the existence of evil.

I really don't see this as causing an issue with anything more than this autistic model that some of you are defending, something has to explain the discrepancy. I personally go with a limitation on power, there are limitations in the structure of reality itself and there is some intrinsic reason why a painful process is required to bring us to the highest good, that not even God can circumvent. You should still rejoice in living in a world that is run by a God who is actively striving to bring about the highest good, it's just obviously not a fantasy world where it's possible to get there quickly and painlessly.

Pic related ends up accidentally making the point- Mummy really is dealing with limitations. You simply can't raise a child to be successful without discipline, and no one has the power to change that, whatever other power or benevolence they may have.

>>24702442
This is the part where we have to accept the limits of our knowledge and terminology, we don't need a perfectly fleshed out explanation to be able to ascertain that there are limits. There's already such a strong willingness to say "God works in mysterious ways" to resolve screaming contradictions, it certainly should be applicable to things we genuinely just can't know about as well.

No one can ever really say what the inherent basis of reality is.

>>24702443
I think the real problem with limitations coming from reality itself is, that those limitations exist outside of God and are probably prior to God.
If such a part of reality can exist, why can't the physical universe just exist?
All the arguments for God's existence assume that there was nothing except God at some point.

>>24702451
>All the arguments for God's existence assume that there was nothing except God at some point.
You're treating the limitations inherent to reality like they are a 'thing that exists', but they can just be a passive force, or even an absence of possibility. They could """exist""" in a universe where literally nothing exists.

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>>24697616
>atheist
>COVID
Go get another booster, hylic

>>24702443
I just noticed that whoever made that stupid meme apparently doesn't understand that BC dating counts down rather than up, it lists Baby Epicurus as living from "341-343 BC" ( so he's negative two years old).

Yeah it’s called Genealogy of Morality.

>>24702441
bingo

>>24702443
>because it's the only way to give humans the opportunity to strive to fulfillment, faith or wisdom through their own free will, which ultimately creates the highest good. I personally agree with this premise.
Again, this doesn't work when children die agonizing deaths at a young age to things like bone cancer. No free will caused it, and it cuts short the ability for the children to grow up and exercise their own will. It's just pointless misery and then death.

>>24702443
>be born in haiti
>die in a hurricane at age 13
>ah, but at least my classmates that made it can strive to uhhh not die in the next one??

>>24703039
Interesting how you skipped all the points that we probably agree on and made a beeline to the one that can be a basis for the same cringey sort of argument you've had hundreds of times before.

Anyway, my response is that, if you accept my original premise, it can be explained as a natural result of allowing a system of the world largely being an uncontrolled mess, and choices having real consequences. The child did not make the choice, and the parent did not make a direct choice, but what happened is impacted by choices, even collectivized ones. We bred in a way that fostered or extinguished certain traits, we set up our societies in a way that made us more or less prepared to deal with medical conditions.

This is actually something I've been thinking over a lot lately- People forget that many of our choices effect our children, grandchildren, etc. a lot more than they effect us. We've forgotten it because we see freedom as existing to allow us to obtain pleasure, not to allow us to achieve self-actualization and benefit society as successfully as we can. That political discussion of freedom applies to the philosophical and religious discussion of free will as well- it wouldn't exist in any meaningful way if your choices couldn't have real consequences beyond yourself (positive or negative).

>>24703240
It's clear that you didn't read the whole post.

Why cant people accept that suffering is beyond all human reason? Why does God need to explain himself? Shit happens and it doesnt matter if there is a reason for it or not, you still have to deal with it. Move on.

>>24703240
Many of the greatest saints came from backgrounds of great suffering. What do they know that you don't?

>Get carried off into the arms of God
Yes, how awful. It's question begging to assume that death is an unmitigated evil.

>>24703278
>heaven
Sure, but is this the soul building theodicy or the heaven theodicy? If it's so important to God that we become more virtuous or moral through suffering in this life, why do so many people die before they have the chance to do so?

>>24703274
>Why does God need to explain himself? Shit happens and it doesnt matter if there is a reason for it or not, you still have to deal with it. Move on.
I can understand the sentiment but you have to understand that you are therefore dropping the premise of God being all-good (possibly even all-powerful too). You're talking about him like he's a stressed out boss who is just trying his best to stay afloat. I mean, I could see that, but that is completely against the premise we are talking about.

>>24703300
>dropping the premise of God being all-good
This is something Christianity is particularly hung up about and doesn't seem to be a big issue for nearly all on incarnations of God or gods. I am not a Christian so its not my problem.
>You're talking about him like he's a stressed out boss who is just trying his best to stay afloat.
I guess thats a possible idea for God, but I just accept that he's unknowable. Maybe hes gassed, maybe he simply forgot about us, or this is his first time with creation and its not going as he planned. I dont know. God does his thing, I'll do mine.

>>24703315
>This is something Christianity is particularly hung up about and doesn't seem to be a big issue for nearly all on incarnations of God or gods. I am not a Christian so its not my problem.
Then you agree with the main premise of the Epicurean Paradox: God can't be *all* powerful and *all* good in a world with evil.

The logical result of this is either tipping your fedora or coming up with a concept of God that doesn't include these traits (at least without some nuance).

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>>24703296
Most cultures and civilizations are more beset by vice than lifted up by virtue. You could just as well ask: "why doesn't God take more people early so that they not have time to be educated into vice?"

But, if one appreciates the full freedom of man qua mankind, we can see that we have a real capacity to life each other up or drag each other down. Anyone who is a techno optimist, or even believes that a techno optimist future is *possible* will be forced to conclude that our struggles largely materialize from our own sinfulness. History is not the mere Hegelian providential unfolding of utopia, nor is it merely the container of a solipsistic proving ground where each individual makes their own individual choice for or against God. As Dante and Solovyov saw, history is a threshing floor where the good is sewn alongside the bad. Goodness grows up and is brought to the storehouse! falsity is exposed and burned away. History is no mere container. It has a telos, but it is one that lies above history. Because this telos has an infinite good as its point of rest, it is infinitely worthwhile to engage in the work of history, the uplifting of the human soul.

Second, we should not forget that it is not merely man that is in rebellion. The archons and principalities who rule this world are also in rebellion. Satan is the "prince of this world." Freedom was not granted to man alone. All of nature was subject to corruption and decay in the Fall, not as some sort of extrinsic punishment but as the consequence of creatures' rebellion against the creator. To assume that there is merely man and mechanistic nature is to shift over to an analysis in terms of an Enlightenment metaphysics that has already been proven incredibly flawed.

>>24703333
Define good. Is it good that a child is run over by a drunk driver? No. Is it good that the child's parents work to enact safety measures and promote sober driving? Yes. Is it good that this may prevent future drunk driving incidents that would have caused immense suffering to other parents? Yes.

When people look at good vs evil, we have a tendency to put blinders on and only focus on one variable. Yes its terrible that a child dies, but what is the wider ramifications of that child's death? What if the killer becomes aware of the evil he has committed and turns to a life of purity that inspires others to act righteous? What if that child was going to grow up to be a piece of shit that would have inflicted suffering on others? There are too many variables to account for and any definition of good overly simplifies the intricacies of the real world.

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if man returned to monkee but also with perfect virtue and love for one another, he might still get sick, or deal with bad weather, etc., but suffering would be dramatically reduced and bearable, especially in the context of a deep spirituality. whatever remaining problems there were could conceivably be fixed by our own cleverness if we developed technology with an eye towards "what is truly best" instead of consooming. people wouldn't rut like animals and have kids they didn't want to raise, people wouldn't try to amass wealth and status out of proportion to their needs. they would want to educate one another, and would work cooperatively to further medicine and agriculture, etc., while also not raping nature to feed unrestrained appetites.

sin is the common denominator in our problems. whatever misfortune might remain stacked against man in a virtuous society of saints, it would certainly be far more bearable than our current hellscape.

Evil exists because it was necessary for me to exist. Evil can be stopped in the future though.

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>>24703382
ultimately then, our example is the Theotokos, who through obedience and love gives birth to God, the very Logos, brining the infinite goodness of God into the immanence of our fallen world. she forms the very body of God who acts in the world, just as we are called on to become conformed to the Good and to give birth to the mystical Body of Christ, His Church and Bride, through our thoughts and deeds.

more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim

:-)

>>24703370
Look, that's an interesting discussion but it's not relevant to *this* discussion.

This particular view of God comes from a religion that already accepts that evil exists, so that point is stipulated to. The question is not over *how much* evil exists, any amount whatsoever (i.e. a literally perfect world minus one evil millisecond) would be enough to create a contradiction.

It would be one thing if the claim was "God is Omnipotent and Omni-okay," you'd be reasonable in trying to argue that the good equals or surpasses the evil, but the claim is that He is 100.00% good with no exceptions.

>>24703468
>Look, that's an interesting discussion but it's not relevant to *this* discussion.
If we are keeping this discussion focused on Christianity, then I get your point. I still don't understand why Christians are so insistent that God and everything has to be good. Its like they are in flat out denial of what is clearly apparent before them.

>>24701425
Bible isn't literature

>>24703486
>I still don't understand why Christians are so insistent that God and everything has to be good.
We're on the same page here. However, I think I understand it to some degree. The short answer is that they backed themselves into a corner with wishful thinking. The more complicated answer has to do with it being a simplified and neutered conception of God and the cosmos that was meant for the masses who weren't trusted with with the more complicated and fucked up model that addresses these concerns. Still, it's such a clearly wrong and incomplete conception that I genuinely think even low-IQ and 'unexamined' individuals struggle with accepting it to some degree, and Christianity has been perpetually unstable because of it.

>>24699957
>Anyways, when you're in your hour of darkness and call out to God to show you that he loves you and there is nothing but silence you will understand what it means to face the problem of evil
Why would you have a hour of darkness lmfao? Born into a shit family that didn't leave you properties to rent out?

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>>24703669
Lol, sure

>>24700021
Why didn't you just beat the faggot rapist up?

>>24703675
lmao

>>24703267
Is your position literally that millions of children throughout history being killed by excruciating pain is just some kind of cosmic collateral damage from God to ensure other people get free will? That is so unbelievably dark that you must recognize that the being behind that which you propose has to be an absolute monster.

>>24703897
Ok so let's say you have an ant farm. But for some reason, ants start mutilating each other and shitting on each other's heads and sticking microplastics up their asses.

How the fuck are you to blame?

>>24703897
7% of all people who have ever existed currently exist right now. You don't have perspective you're just a midwit.

>>24704062
Did I engineer the ants from scratch and set their behavior parameters? Then, yes, I would be responsible
>>24704108
Until the modern age, approximately 50% of infants died before the age of 5. You have no idea what you're talking about.

>>24704176
>infant mortality used to be high
No shit, midwit. 7% of all people who have ever existed are alive right now. We're new.

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>>24697616
Take the open theism pill.

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Hey fellas you remember when the zionist government systematically shut down houses of organized religion as "unessential" while sending to police to arrest preachers? Because you literally cannot talk about this on social media.

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>>24704349
That was five years ago. And then they began disappearing people for protesting the zionist genocide of Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land. We can barely talk about it on this website.

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>>24704357
Do you remember when even more recently it was revealed that the President of the United States has been blackmailed with child rape by zionists in order to secure money, weapons, and support for their genocidal regime?

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>>24704371
Here is a Book which deals with the problem of evil. Not in a rhetorical sense, but literally mobilizes believers into physical armies to fight evil for God.

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>>24704378

When you struggle for God, Jihad, who is your enemy?

When you are aligned with God, your enemy is literally those aligned with Satan.

Pretty clear and direct. Struggle for God, who is good, against Satan, who is evil.

>>24704371
If there were incriminating evidence against Trump contained within the Epstein files the Biden administration would have leaked it. Also, it's gross/pathetic that you've bought into using the plight of sex trafficking victims because you have TDS.

>>24698281
clearly you're closer to dog

>>24704349
nope literally never heard of it

>>24704385
Cope
sloppy joe is in the pedo file too btw

>>24703897
Here's the idea I am putting out there:

God is inherently good and has set up everything with the long-term goal of maximizing good in the universe, and He has all the power that any entity can have, *HOWEVER* there are certain limits on what even the most powerful entity in the world can do. For instance:

>He is not "beyond logic" (that's just ridiculous wordsalad and goes to undermine the core of any philosophically-grounded religious view)
>Free will is inherently necessary for enacting the highest good, He can't get around this.
>At a personal level- I believe there is probably some inherent force requiring the existence of entropy and scarcity, even if it exists within limits or can eventually be abolished in the long run.

Accepting these precepts, it is possible that God really is utilizing all his power to push the universe towards the maximum good, and this really is the best that it can possibly be at this point in point in time, as fucked up as things are.


It's up to you whether this contradicts the claim that he is "all-powerful, it comes down to semantics (I'd say it doesn't, He has 'all' the power that actually exists, but lacks power that does not exist).

>Is your position literally that millions of children throughout history being killed by excruciating pain is just some kind of cosmic collateral damage from God to ensure other people get free will?
Literally, yes, it is. I'm not completely convinced of this at a personal level, but this makes internal sense to me and I think I'm on the general right path with this model.

It goes beyond religion, by the way. You can apply this form of thinking to things like politics- The best possible government that can actually be enacted may still have to end up with blood on its hands. If this is true, it would be wrong to push against this reality and try to enact a government that doesn't end up with blood on its hands, because it would have to be a worse government, by definition.

>>24705462
NTA but I've been lurking this thread and this pretty much sums up my worldview. God is inherently good but he's bound by the free will He gave us, and in a way He's not all-knowing.

Has anyone in this thread read Answer to Job by Jung? He says God is the collective unconscious who is unaware of its own omnipotence. Thought it was a pretty interesting take.

>>24700469
>You have to relish in others' suffering because some perverted Godless frog twisted the message of The Bible with sophistry and ill-will to the point where it might as well be a completely strange philosophy
If you want to criticize the moral system or indeed any other aspect of Christianity, do so within its own paradigm and read the Church Fathers to find contradictions or absurdities, do not run to bitter secular malcontents. He's a self-proclaimed absurdist for crying out loud.

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>>24697616
E: Superposition of aware-unawareness+unaware-awareness; godforce innately stopped it via obligate geometric law, (species survived trial by being strong enough to survive)

Imagine athiests/agnostics actually believing covid-19 qualifies as argumentative material. As if a bunch of monkeys breathing their revolting, fecal matter infused moist toxins too close to one another could ever be the fault of a God level entity. God, I fucking hate having to come on here and course correct you divine sparkblind tards, haha