If there is a God, why is there evil?

[Sculptor1]

:headslap
Are you kidding?

:thighslap
No. Deadly serious.
Was my question too difficult to answer?

It was a completely stupid question.
My post was the ironic converse of the usual crapology offered by god botherers to explain evil.
I simply turned the trope on its head, by explaining good in an evil world.

[LuckyR]

:thighslap
No. Deadly serious.
Was my question too difficult to answer?

It was a completely stupid question.
My post was the ironic converse of the usual crapology offered by god botherers to explain evil.
I simply turned the trope on its head, by explaining good in an evil world.

If you say so.

As an aside, in the absence of non-verbal communication, irony needs to be of a higher quality to be clear.

[Sculptor1]

It was a completely stupid question.
My post was the ironic converse of the usual crapology offered by god botherers to explain evil.
I simply turned the trope on its head, by explaining good in an evil world.

If you say so.

As an aside, in the absence of non-verbal communication, irony needs to be of a higher quality to be clear.

LOL
No the person reading it just needs to be smarter, and/or not American.

So do I have to post "IRONY WARNING"? Would it not be better for you to post "American Warning".

[Felix]

However, in the absence of higher thought, say for the billions of years where the earth was inhabited by microbes, does the world need a god or a satan?

We also have angelic microbes, e.g., probiotic bacteria, versus spawn of Satan like E. coli and C. difficile.

Not sure when they started taking sides though, maybe billions of year ago.

[Sy Borg]

The first critters were lithotrophs, rock-eaters. Apparently the first carnivores emerged soon afterwards. My guess is that the first microbes were almost indistinguishable from the chemicals they consumes and quite possibly could not tell the difference between their neighbours and their food. It's not as though much in the way of sensing would have evolved at that stage.

Good guys and bad guys in nature are hard to identify. Carnivores are often protectors and feeders of plants - and we all love plants, don't we? :)

But then again, herbivores, with their big, scared gentle eyes are even more loveable! Not to mention the adorable genetic engineering of our companion carnivores.

Then you have people. Bloody humans - animals that underwent a full charmectomy, using religion as anaesthetic to convince themselves that they were wonderful when they behaved like vicious psychopaths.

There we have creation, more George RR Martin than George Lucas. Creation that is in its adolescence, with humans in the process of putting aside the "childish things" of their animal nature. VR is ahead, how much of it I have no idea, but it will be much more prominent than it is today.

Not sure where God fits in here, perhaps the far future when intelligent machines create a galactic mind that connects planets around red dwarfs everywhere in, say, a few hundred billion years' time or so. Even that would only be about the third of the expected age of the universe's stellar era.

There is still plenty of time for God to emerge. People are in such a rush for God to appear, like kiddies getting excited about Christmas two months before time (probably because some shopkeeper had nowhere to store Christmas decorations after a refurb and figured that early November was close enough).

[LuckyR]

If you say so.

As an aside, in the absence of non-verbal communication, irony needs to be of a higher quality to be clear.

LOL
No the person reading it just needs to be smarter, and/or not American.

So do I have to post "IRONY WARNING"? Would it not be better for you to post "American Warning".

Well, I have to admit we Americans are a pretty dumb lot on occasion. Pray tell, which country has the privilege of having you as a citizen?

[Sculptor1]

LOL
No the person reading it just needs to be smarter, and/or not American.

So do I have to post "IRONY WARNING"? Would it not be better for you to post "American Warning".

Well, I have to admit we Americans are a pretty dumb lot on occasion. Pray tell, which country has the privilege of having you as a citizen?

Sadly the USA, accidentally.
I've lived in the UK since 1961, but Hollywood 1980-81.

Americans don't seem to get irony.

[Sculptor1]

The first critters were lithotrophs, rock-eaters. Apparently the first carnivores emerged soon afterwards. My guess is that the first microbes were almost indistinguishable from the chemicals they consumes and quite possibly could not tell the difference between their neighbours and their food. It's not as though much in the way of sensing would have evolved at that stage.

Good guys and bad guys in nature are hard to identify. Carnivores are often protectors and feeders of plants - and we all love plants, don't we?

But then again, herbivores, with their big, scared gentle eyes are even more loveable! Not to mention the adorable genetic engineering of our companion carnivores.

Then you have people. Bloody humans - animals that underwent a full charmectomy, using religion as anaesthetic to convince themselves that they were wonderful when they behaved like vicious psychopaths.

There we have creation, more George RR Martin than George Lucas. Creation that is in its adolescence, with humans in the process of putting aside the "childish things" of their animal nature. VR is ahead, how much of it I have no idea, but it will be much more prominent than it is today.

Not sure where God fits in here, perhaps the far future when intelligent machines create a galactic mind that connects planets around red dwarfs everywhere in, say, a few hundred billion years' time or so. Even that would only be about the third of the expected age of the universe's stellar era.

There is still plenty of time for God to emerge. People are in such a rush for God to appear, like kiddies getting excited about Christmas two months before time (probably because some shopkeeper had nowhere to store Christmas decorations after a refurb and figured that early November was close enough).

Yup - its all a matter of perception. Dogs are the most beautiful, loving, friendly, loyal, and adorable of the animal world as far as I am concerned. But don't try to tell that to the field mouse mother whose babies have just been snuffled up, by my Labrador bitch.

Hobbes had it. Good is that which pleaseth man, evil is that which pleaseth him not.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Americans don't seem to get irony.

Perhaps. But let's look at the context. An online philosophy forum. In such forums people put forward the most odd stuff in the most odd ways...and they mean it. British aesthetics will produce ironic posts or parodies that will seem really rather straighforward next to earnest, they mean it, posts around these. It would be a shame to have a warning label. I mean, that just ruins irony. But I think we all need to expect our parodies and ironic posts and spoofs to be taken as intended seriously. In fact, we can count on having fans on occasion. Perhaps, God feels this way about some scriptures, to bring us back on topic.

[Belindi]

Karpel Tunnel, I agree. Ideas are communicated both explicitly and expressively. Sometimes the form of the communication, for instance irony, is itself the purpose of the communication.

[LuckyR]

Well, I have to admit we Americans are a pretty dumb lot on occasion. Pray tell, which country has the privilege of having you as a citizen?

Sadly the USA, accidentally.
I've lived in the UK since 1961, but Hollywood 1980-81.

Americans don't seem to get irony.

Interesting. Said the kettle...

[Sculptor1]

Americans don't seem to get irony.

Perhaps. But let's look at the context. An online philosophy forum. In such forums people put forward the most odd stuff in the most odd ways...and they mean it. British aesthetics will produce ironic posts or parodies that will seem really rather straighforward next to earnest, they mean it, posts around these. It would be a shame to have a warning label. I mean, that just ruins irony. But I think we all need to expect our parodies and ironic posts and spoofs to be taken as intended seriously. In fact, we can count on having fans on occasion. Perhaps, God feels this way about some scriptures, to bring us back on topic.

But surely you have read enough of my posts to know that I would have no more asserted the existence of Satan, than I would have asserted the existence of God.

And so the well worn trope that God allows a little evil to make good things appear better, is clearly being parodied by a person who is an atheist.

[Sculptor1]

Sadly the USA, accidentally.
I've lived in the UK since 1961, but Hollywood 1980-81.

Americans don't seem to get irony.

Interesting. Said the kettle...

In the UK "interesting" can mean "yawn!".

[LuckyR]

Interesting. Said the kettle...

In the UK "interesting" can mean "yawn!".

Precisely.

[Sculptor1]

In the UK "interesting" can mean "yawn!".

Precisely.

Though you DID ask!