If there is a God, why is there evil?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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The Beast
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by The Beast »

Aion 371: “In Alchemy the snake is the symbol of Mercurius non vulgi, who was bracketed with the God of revelation”. The mechanisms of human thought are relative to a Universal thought. At the speed of thought I am faster from alpha to Omega than a single thought of Creation. I am the workings of the single thought as real as reality travelling from beginning to end. As the Universe goes from alpha to Omega, the inner works of thought are changed by the learned revealed bias. At the end, It is then that God might say: this is good.
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Belindi »

Fooloso4 wrote:
Yes, this much I understood. What I don’t understand is why the problem of evil goes away if we acknowledge that the love we create is not all-powerful.
The problem of evil as usually understood pertains only to God as Entity.

Because the love that we create is what we do it's not what we are. If there were such as "what we are" that would constitute an eternal form of the human, i.e. an end state of humans , a closure of possibility. Creation is not an entity or even The Entity, but a process.

Pragmatically, to believe that creation is an entity, is to allow idolatry.
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Socrateaze
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Socrateaze »

There is no God and if there were why would he/she be concerned with little specs of dust? You talk about bad things happening to good people, that is too many adjectives. Things happen to people, would be more accurate and the judgement of those things and people is most likely an illusion or wishful thinking. Just because we can judge, doesn't mean our judgement is right, yet we have made our judgment law in a universe that follows its own law. We wish we can change the universe and we convince ourselves of how it must be. Perhaps this is why we don't understand God, if there is one we have missed him/her in shaping God to our wishes.
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Atreyu »

Perhaps a better question is: Why would not there be evil if there is a God?
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LuckyR
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by LuckyR »

Atreyu wrote:Perhaps a better question is: Why would not there be evil if there is a God?
The OP's ridiculous question makes several silly assumptions. First, that if there is a being infinitely more intelligent and powerful than humans, it would then: A) care about beings infinitely less intelligent than itself, then B) eliminate negativity for these insignificant beings thereby C) destroying the only possible entertainment value of these creations ie their Free Will.

To quote Mr Spock, "illogical".
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Socrateaze »

LuckyR wrote:
Atreyu wrote:Perhaps a better question is: Why would not there be evil if there is a God?
The OP's ridiculous question makes several silly assumptions. First, that if there is a being infinitely more intelligent and powerful than humans, it would then: A) care about beings infinitely less intelligent than itself, then B) eliminate negativity for these insignificant beings thereby C) destroying the only possible entertainment value of these creations ie their Free Will.

To quote Mr Spock, "illogical".
Indeed, Mr Spock, I think it must be quite entertaining to watch mortals with half-baked ideas on reality call out for a God dressed in their own whims. Besides, if death is just the gateway to paradise, suffering should be relished, right? I personally don't believe in evil, just smart people rising above sociology the way Kings and governments rose to their quick fortunes and empires. Or as George Carlin said, 'if there is a natural disaster, I always hope it gets worse.'
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by -1- »

Atreyu wrote:Perhaps a better question is: Why would not there be evil if there is a God?
There is good, there is evil, but it is the Christian scriptures that connected the two as opposite ends of a spectrum. God is good, and the devil is evil.

It all gets done by adding one letter to the concept. Purer even than semantics.

If there is evil in this world, it has been created by god, if you believe the bible, the koran, etc. because it was God that created everything.

That brings up the question, who created god? If god created everything, it created itself as well. Is that possible? Does not a creator's existence necessarily predate the existence of its creations? I am not smart enough to figure that one out. If the answer is "No, it does not," then god created itself.

Is there any good in creating evil? God is called infinitely good, but how credible is that claim? In fact, how credible is the claim that god exists? I give credit to the op, who worded the op as "given that god exists, why is there evil?" This is a valid question.
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Ranvier »

God exists because I exist :)
Please forgive my god complex... but evil exists because I'm surrounded by all these fools.
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Kinyonga
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Kinyonga »

-1 wrote:That brings up the question, who created god? If god created everything, it created itself as well. Is that possible? Does not a creator's existence necessarily predate the existence of its creations? I am not smart enough to figure that one out. If the answer is "No, it does not," then god created itself.

Is there any good in creating evil? God is called infinitely good, but how credible is that claim? In fact, how credible is the claim that god exists? I give credit to the op, who worded the op as "given that god exists, why is there evil?" This is a valid question.
I think a creator would have to predate the existence of its creations. Nothingness can't create something. God was never created; He always existed.
God didn't create evil: He gave people free will; the choice to be good or evil. What would be the point (to a fair, loving God) of creating humans if they were just to be machines, obeying automatically?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Belindi »

Hi Kinyonga. Welcome :)
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Ranvier
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Ranvier »

Time is change > Evil is the cause for change > without change there can be no life = evil is necessary for life to exist

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 4:47 am to add the following --

There can be no Evil without Good > take the above = in order for life to exist "God" must be good

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 4:52 am to add the following --

Wow, I think I just proved not only the existence of God but that God is good :)

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 4:56 am to add the following --

Only if of course one can accept that "God" is time.

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 5:25 am to add the following --

Time is infinite > God is Infinity

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 5:31 am to add the following --

For a scientific mind

Matter is Infinity of particle-wave

Particle = m
wave = light

God = mc^2

My gratitude goes Einstein
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Misty »

God "IS" "I AM" --- "I AM" created time as humans know time, therefore, not subject to time, "I AM" is not subject to his creation. Creation is subject to "I AM"
Last edited by Misty on August 26th, 2017, 6:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ranvier
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Ranvier »

Beautiful Misty! It so easy to "get it" now.

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 6:01 am to add the following --

I think I just fulfilled my purpose in life :)

-- Updated August 26th, 2017, 6:21 am to add the following --

We are literally... each of us "discovering" God in our own way as we are part of the infinite.
Steve3007
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Steve3007 »

Kinyonga:
God didn't create evil: He gave people free will; the choice to be good or evil. What would be the point (to a fair, loving God) of creating humans if they were just to be machines, obeying automatically?
Having tinkered about with making simple robots myself, I would recommend it to God as quite good fun, even though they are completely deterministic. To a clueless mortal like me, a deterministic computer program can still do surprising and interesting things because the complex behaviour of even quite simple computer programs can be hard to predict in advance. But to an omniscient being? Would any computer program, no matter how complex, be boring to Him?
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Sy Borg
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?

Post by Sy Borg »

I'm thinking that if God knows everything, then It would know who was going to get their lives right and who would stuff up anyway, in which case we'd all be pointlessly playing out our roles.

Still, many humans can be extremely skilled at anticipating others' choices and determining their most likely paths in the future. Given that even very perspicacious humans are specks on an Earth that is a speck in the solar system that is a speck in a galaxy that is a speck in galactic superclusters that are a speck in the cosmic web that is a speck of God, one would expect God to be so many "moves ahead" that It would surely be able to anticipate people's choices throughout their entire lives (and much more).

That would leave God watching on as doomed people stumbled inevitably to their doom. Since that is silly, it opens up an interesting duality based on non-omnipotence and non-omniscience.

If something like God exists, it could be that, like Ra and Apep, there is a hungry, chaotic quantum void being held at bay by heroic God, who must always fight off the Void from which It (God) emerged! Like eukaryotes rising from the slimy swamp of prokaryotes, the emergent forms must forever continue fighting the sea of little beasts from which they emerged which constantly try to reclaim the upstarts. So God, having emerged from The Void, must forever keep The Void from trying to reclaim its product.

So the deity is not outside but lies within all life, planets, stars, asteroids, comets and even molecular dust clouds and radiation belts - all doing God's bidding in fighting off The Void. In the end, The Void's greedy mouths (black holes) will dominate before its next grand regurgitation (aka big bang). Then, like Sisyphus, once again poor God will be is forced to slowly emerge from the mindless forms of energy and matter until It can evolve another sentience. The only consolation is that the last universe was not completely absorbed - a few precipitously redshifted photons remained, acting the DNA for the next universe and, eventually, its deities.

Yet The Void is not evil. It just is. It doesn't care but it claims everything in the end - apart from the seeds of the next generation.

:)
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