Epicurus 2 (Detailed)
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 1:51 pm
Epicurus, “Is god willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing, then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god? “.
1.
A Christian might say “God is able to prevent evil, but not willing, but his motives are not malevolent or even apathy, his motives are to test us and determine our worthiness for salvation.”
A test on earth is irrelevant/does not hold up to the foundations of the bible because the Christian god is already completely aware of the moral character of every human being on earth, so why would he need to test us? It does not make sense. But let’s assume this is the fact, take below as a contradiction.
Imagine you’re a fourth grader and your teacher has just handed out a test to all the students in the class room, with each paper she hands out she tells people how much time they have to do the test, some have 15 minutes, others are told to turn it in next week. Some of the tests are long, others are short, some have easy questions like 3+4 = what? And some have difficult questions like what are the 4 forces of an atom? Would anyone take the results of such a test seriously? Of course not, in order for a test to be a measure of anything, it has to be fair and in order for it to be fair it has to be the same for anyone who takes it, “life is a test” holds no water for the main reason that life is not fair. If you pass the “test of life” is absurd, for it is subjected to your environment, what sort of god would reward someone over another person simply due to the environment they’re born with? If a human is born into a chaotic country, and grown up to be a cruel man, how is that fair from a person who was born into a peaceful catholic family?
2.
“God is none of those things, God is something more, God is beyond our ability to grasp, he is beyond us” This is a cop out, it renders anything ‘true’ you cannot claim something is true by using logic that makes it undeniably true. I could just say my dog is a lobster, and say that the logic is beyond us therefore it is true. – Does not make it true.
3, and so on will be any logical and reasonable replies to this topic which should be answered by me.
*I will NOT reply to any posts that stray from the logic of the bible, which Christianity is clearly based on, and I will not reply and/or acknowledge abstract-insult posts.*
-Note: Credit for youtube user name “ Amazing Atheist “ as referanced
1.
A Christian might say “God is able to prevent evil, but not willing, but his motives are not malevolent or even apathy, his motives are to test us and determine our worthiness for salvation.”
A test on earth is irrelevant/does not hold up to the foundations of the bible because the Christian god is already completely aware of the moral character of every human being on earth, so why would he need to test us? It does not make sense. But let’s assume this is the fact, take below as a contradiction.
Imagine you’re a fourth grader and your teacher has just handed out a test to all the students in the class room, with each paper she hands out she tells people how much time they have to do the test, some have 15 minutes, others are told to turn it in next week. Some of the tests are long, others are short, some have easy questions like 3+4 = what? And some have difficult questions like what are the 4 forces of an atom? Would anyone take the results of such a test seriously? Of course not, in order for a test to be a measure of anything, it has to be fair and in order for it to be fair it has to be the same for anyone who takes it, “life is a test” holds no water for the main reason that life is not fair. If you pass the “test of life” is absurd, for it is subjected to your environment, what sort of god would reward someone over another person simply due to the environment they’re born with? If a human is born into a chaotic country, and grown up to be a cruel man, how is that fair from a person who was born into a peaceful catholic family?
2.
“God is none of those things, God is something more, God is beyond our ability to grasp, he is beyond us” This is a cop out, it renders anything ‘true’ you cannot claim something is true by using logic that makes it undeniably true. I could just say my dog is a lobster, and say that the logic is beyond us therefore it is true. – Does not make it true.
3, and so on will be any logical and reasonable replies to this topic which should be answered by me.
*I will NOT reply to any posts that stray from the logic of the bible, which Christianity is clearly based on, and I will not reply and/or acknowledge abstract-insult posts.*
-Note: Credit for youtube user name “ Amazing Atheist “ as referanced
There's no shortage of threads that address the question of Evil and God's omnipotence from several perspectives including the scholastic regurgitated offering you provide here. This is sometimes referred to as the Theodicy. You might try searching on that term.