ITT post books about the problem of evil
The Book of Jobbrief synopsis: suck a cock, princess. you are literally pond scum and God can do whatever the fuck he wants.
Fpbp
>>24702295>The Inferno is about how the damned see reality.>The punishments are concretizations or what sin does to people, not literal predictions or the afterlife.>Moderns don't go past the Inferno, where we only get the damned's view of God (note the damned in the Inferno never feel sorry for their acts or for anyone else).>Come away thinking Dante's view of God is the view of the people he thinks are wallowing in sins they cannot escape.It's sad because it's a very beautiful and deeply philosophical work and it gets reduced to terrible surface readings. It doesn't help that people growing up in a highly Protestant culture think they understand medieval Christianity through mere osmosis.
The Clockwork Orange.
>>24702295The problem of evil never made sense to me. It assumes that things are evil because it doesn't meet a person's individual desires. "A kind family member dies, where is God?" translates to "God fails to exist in a utilitarian and predictable manner that benefits me, therefore I will not believe in Them anymore." It's no different from praying to God so that you could win the lotteryIt's a very instrumental way of looking at religion, and it's a framework that a lot of believers and non-believers use to root their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) in. At that point, you're better off deifying something that actively benefits you (e.g. unironically worshipping a deification of money and capitalism, the universal utility for an individual's material needs)
>>24702527You're confused by the idea that reality contains imperfections?
>>24702527So God exists in a way that's indistinguishable from him not existing?
>>24702560you are severely retarded.
>>24702554>>24702560No dudes, the problem is in recognizing the existence of evil to begin withEvil in most cases is a manifestation of problems (even when we're using Christian definitions of mortal sins). However, the appearance of evil as "the absence of good" means that most people who cite the Problem of Evil will translate "God's ineptitude" as "the absence of good solutions to their personal problems"This isn't to make any theological comments about the nature of God, but to make comments on people who make theological comments. You would only acknowledge that "there are evil problems beyond what God is capable of" if you believe in the existence of evil problems and want God to solve themI think that fundamentally views religion as instrumental to one's personal desires of "a specific version of the world"
>>24702593Wow, you really got him.
>>24702597It seems like you're trying to re-fight some argument you got in last week with someone who isn't here, and are only capable of doing it in random bits and pieces.
>>24702602They're mostly shower thoughts. I've been trying to get back into spiritualism and have begun realizing how self-interested my original interpretation of religion used to beAnd the Problem of Evil is one of the things I remember grappling with. I'm only now realizing what it says about the way I look at GodI also 100% lied when I said "I never understood the problem of evil" I just didn't want to make it seem like it was a personal regret I was dealing with
>>24702605>They're mostly shower thoughts.I would suggest getting a waterproof journal instead of doing this.
>>24702611I should start journaling, good ideaThanks
>>24702527I've seen it defined so many ways. There's like what you said. Then I've seenA being of pure good isn't able to do evil.If God can't be evil then he's limited and can't be all powerful.I think Occam developed Occam's Razor too for the problem of evil.
>>24702527>>24702624You could at least put some effort into hiding your samefagging.
>>24702645I'm just over here playing with my cat right now anon
>>24702295>problem of evil>go beyond good and evil>problem solvedyou christniggers really oughta try this one
>>24702527Both in its logical and evidential forms, the argument doesn't rely on the problem of personal suffering. In fact one of the most common examples for the problem of evil, in philosophy of religion, is a fawn dying alone in a forest from a natural fire. Either the very existence of evil (logical) or its overwhelming enormity (evidential) seem to be contradictory to gods supposed perfectly good nature and his omnipotence. I could give you a formal argument for the problem of evil, but then again you can just google it yourself.Instead, consider the fact that life on Earth has existed for 3.8 billion years. Although only the last half a billion years (a conservative estimate) has life become complex enough to experience pain. And since then, there have been 5 major mass extinctions and countless minor ones. The end-Permian mass extinction may have seen only 10% of living beings survive on Earth. And while extinctions are events in Earths history, horrific pain and suffering are a daily constant for billions of living beings on Earth. Hundreds of millions of years that have seen quadrillions?, quintillions?, septillions? ... of innocent living beings get tortured, burned alive, eaten alive, dismembered (also sometimes alive), starved and countless other ways that nature, and not humans, has inflicted pain and suffering. You might have heard that since the dawn of time there have been approximately 100 billion humans born. But since childhood mortality rate was up until recently around 50%, around half of all humans, almost 50 billion, have lived a short and pointless life, just to die in agony either as infants or as a small child from viruses, bacteria, cancers ... And humans are not an unusual exception. Childhood mortality is for similar reasons equally high in the animal kingdom.I'm not saying that you can't come up with a justification for why god had to create Earth in such a way that it would have to be a giant cosmic Auschwitz, but I'm simply not convinced by any of it. None of it makes sense. If there is anyone running this thing, then he must be a deranged psychopathic monster.
>>24702775Isn't the belief that "the world should be a less violent place" itself rooted in personal suffering? Someone else suffers, you believe this should be changed and hold God accountable for it. You make it your business because it hurts you indirectly, and you feel disappointed because the all-powerful all-benevolent all-knowing God is letting it happen. If we do not acknowledge these things as necessarily evil, then we do not see a problem of evil that exists outside the teleology and boundaries of God I'm not suggesting that what you believe is wrong and how you feel is invalid, I just feel that problematizing evil as we interpret it is a personal statement on what kind of framework you might have towards religion (in this case, that it doesn't meet your individual criteria). I'm still in the process of making sense of it myself, though, so I'm not defending God or anything like that; I'm just asking myself if I even believe in rooting my framework in this kind of ego-centric manner (I'm not using this word negatively)
>>24702503Yeah. It's insane how people fixate on what is probably the worst part of the poem. Not that Inferno is bad by any measure, but the poem only gets better as it goes on. Even in Inferno, though, the work is so immense in scope (one might call it maximalist) as to encompass the whole of literature, history, the arts, the sciences, philosophy, theology, mythology, and other traditions up to the point when it was written. It is at once hyper specific and deeply personal to Dante's own experience, and completely universal to the human condition.
>>24702527What would you say the definition of evil is?
>>24702815On a personal level, I don't believe in the existence of Evil. I only believe in the existence of love and social problems, although I recognize that when other people use the word evil they mostly refer to social problems (as all problems are social in nature). I just don't see how the existence of these social problems necessarily refute the limitations of a loving deity unless we go out of our way to define the deity's limitations as the existence of these social problems. This kind of definition only exists to refute rather than to do anything productiveA man is not incapable, is not inhumane, is not ignorant, and is not unloving just because a problem persists in his nation and in his surroundings. He can act to resolve the problem. He may not always succeed, he may not always do the right thing even if he intended to, and he may not always resolve things immediately, but that doesn't change any of the attributes mentioned above. I don't see why we should hold a different standard for God, especially if good people exist to try and resolve our shared problems one day at a time
Never mind this anon's >>24702527 very good point, which has before been phrased as >I'm supposed to believe God isn't real because Eva Mendez isn't blowing me right now?The problem with the problem of evil is that the non-theist has no way to account for the existence of evil period. Everybody may come up with ways in which evil can be properly defined, but all of them fail without an arbiter of morality. Suffering is of the evil? What about ascetics, monastics, melancholics and sadomasochists? They seem to go out of their way to achieve it. Death? So all of the people who engaged in human sacrifice were wrong, but you are right, because... I was going to say something silly like "science supports it", but most scientists today seem to agree that the world is overpopulated and something ought be done about that.If you accept the problem of evil, you have to account for evil, and see it within a theistic paradigm. If you do, you understand why there's evil in the world.
>>24702842You're just regurgitating the bullying you got on /adv/ when you posted about not having sex and applying the concepts from it to the question of God.
>>24702879I'm not that anon but I am sexless yeah>>24702877That's more or less it yeah. This isn't an explicit "I believe in God now" either, it's more like "I'll need a better argument from these people">>24702624Also I forgot to respond but variations makes sense, I'll need to reflect on whether I agree with Occam on that + how I feel about the variations
There is no problem of evil, evil is a human conception to identify what they don’t prefer. It’s also a childish conception of why humans do what they do. It doesn’t reach the core of human instinct or desire.
>>24702877>The problem with the problem of evil is that the non-theist has no way to account for the existence of evil period.Well that's just the thing, theists do have a way to account for evil. Christianity and, essentially, all major religions accept the existence of evil, and usually provide a definition or examples of it that fit pretty well with the common sense understanding (murder, hate, torture, misery, selfishness, etc.) and if anything simply exceed that understanding by adding onto the list of examples (masturbation, etc.). So it doesn't really work as a defense to their religious model to say that evil doesn't exist, the model accepts it does (but fails to explain why it exists).I get it if you have your own model that you're defending, but you should be clear about that from the start. You all know that we're basically always talking about mainstream Christianity's conception of God with this conversation, so it just becomes this annoying bait-and-switch when you aren't upfront about what you're defending.
>>24702877It’s actually baffling how ignorant theists are, all willingly too. You don’t know anything.
>>24702908Most of what you say it's correct, with a caveat. You can't just pick specific aspects of Christianity that you like (such as the notion that evil exists), to then impose your secularist presuppositions upon them, and understand or analyze them separately from the entire religion. A holistic approach would then that evil exists in terms of cause because of the fall, and in terms of purpose to test us. If the atheist doesn't take that as a whole, there's no evil to complain about.
>>24702923dont you have a ricky gervais special to watch? remember to report back to us your newfound philosophical takes
>>24702941This is the part where I tell you to go visit your local pedo congregation. This is boring. You have no actual knowledge or framework of the world, Abrahamic “thinking” is bereft of all intelligence and understanding.
>>24702934>You can't just pick specific aspects of Christianity that you like (such as the notion that evil exists)No, I unironically can and will. That's what just about any non-retard is doing these days. I'm against Atheism but Christianity simply is not working (and its failure to grapple with these fundamental questions from the get-go is a major reason why this is the case). I'm quite happy to take what I can from Christianity without drinking the whole bottle of kool-aid. But that aside. >A holistic approach would then that evil exists in terms of cause because of the fall, and in terms of purpose to test us.First of all, this is not a universal view even within what you would call mainstream Christianity, it's been interpreted every which way. More importantly, it just cuts right back to the fundamental issue that God was for some reason either unable/unwilling to create a path to 'maximum good and meaning' (which apparently involves free will) that didn't involve suffering along the way. Even if it ends in more 'good' than 'evil' it still involves some amount of evil, because there was no way around it. I think this is something that everyone here should accept, you really can't write a coherent explanation for this without including some basic limitations on what God can do. >f the atheist doesn't take that as a whole, there's no evil to complain about.No, there just isn't evil that is clearly defined by a universal principle. You can still just declare something is evil "because common sense" or "because I said so", and if you do a good enough job of expressing it then it at least can work as a practical term.
>>24702968>No, I unironically can and will. What can I say, have a party. Just don't expect to reach any sort of meaningful truth. It's sort of like saying "Fine, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but not that he's the Son of God incarnate". As far as I'm concerned, good and evil as notions are as supernatural a concept as God Himself. I'll take an internal critique though.>First of all, this is not a universal view even within what you would call mainstream ChristianityThe view held in mainstream Christianity is definitely not something I'd concern myself with. Most Christians don't know even some of the most fundamental positions, unfortunately.>You can still just declare something is evil "because common sense" or "because I said so"So what do you make of a hypothetical society where suffering isn't associated with evil? What about a non-hypothetical society where human sacrifice is virtuous? Or a man who says what's evil is privation of his pleasure in any way? (If you want to claim either that those societies are doomed to fail, or that that man is sure to have a quick demise- why should that be wrong?) What about a Christian who thinks suffering brings him closer to Christ?
>>24702295Dante ripped off Ibn Arabi. I'm not complaining though. Both were excellent poets and theologians.
>>24703005>What can I say, have a party. Just don't expect to reach any sort of meaningful truth. It's sort of like saying "Fine, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but not that he's the Son of God incarnate". As far as I'm concerned, good and evil as notions are as supernatural a concept as God Himself. I'll take an internal critique though.It's very strange that you're acting like the mainstream position should just be presumed to be "meaningful truth", especially when your next statement mocks mainstream Christianity, and it's pretty clear that you aren't even a Christian but rather are just making some points in its defense. I get a very strong vibe that you are basically just a self-hating atheist, or agnostic or deist.
>>24703226I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian from Eastern Europe. By "mainstream Christianity" I was sure you meant the American evangelists.Also, can you read? All I've done in my post is express skepticism towards the current mainstream positions on what's moral. Are you going to address any of my points or answer any of my questions?
>>24703258>Are you going to address any of my points or answer any of my questions?Maybe I will if you can come with something other than stream-of-consciousness wordsalad and "umm what about the-the thing??"
>>24703280>I don't approve of your stylistic choices so I won't replyThough I guess it's on me, that I expected you to act like a reasonable man and now a cowardly idiot. It's not whataboutism to question your puerile notions of "common sense"
>>24703362You really are fucking stupid if you can't wrap your head around the concept of being able to just declare a value judgement and seeing who else ends up accepting it at a practical level. Everything ultimately ends up working that way, there is no idea that everyone is 'compelled' to accept.
>>24702503>When we are in Hell God is an inscrutable, tyrant proclaiming only "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not.">Hume's dictum that "reason is and ought only be the slave of the passions" is literally the slogan of the damned throughout.YFW you realize Dante produced the supreme critique of the Reformation and Enlightenment before they even existed.
>>24703455He is from EE, moral relativism is ingrained in them. First the Ottoman, then the Communist rape, what do you expect it does to one's ancestral blood memory?
>>24702295the bible which shows how evil god is
>>24705115Atheists really can't wrap their head around internal critiques huh? Well I'm sure you must, it's not that hard a concept, it's just that you pretend you don't because your philosophy is bankrupt.>>24703455Common sense shifts, idiot. If it becomes common sense that eugenics is moral, will it be immoral to oppose the killing of invalids? Simple questions atheists never want to answer. Pathetic
Dante Alighieri condemns the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, directly to Hell in his works, despite the Divine Comedy being stolen directly from the Islamic story of The Night Journey.Not taking wisdom or advice from a man who simultaneously blasphemes my religion while stealing from it and passing it off as his own work. Notice that an illustration of his work is pinned to the top of this board.
>>24702295
