onegoodmove

Rightly said. Believers would want thier god to be perfect in every way. But when you really look at it it's just one big godly mess. I hear christians always talking about the "Revelations" and how 'the time for the begining of the end is near' Holy Crap. If god wanted the end of the world to happen you would think he would've done it by now. He's had his chances to extricate evil for some time. But then people come up with the "god's will" explaination. I really hope that the will of the people is stronger then anything they feel the need to hold on to. We need believers in the future, not destiny or in "god's plan".

If the html works, this is a good start for explaining evil. I think C.S. Lewis is pretty good at being reasonable.

(BTW, I am a Christian, but I also have a tendency to lean to the left. Especially with Bush in office. And I certainly enjoy most of the stuff that is posted on this site.)

It was failing to find an answer within Christianity to this problem and a whole load of related dilemmas that caused me to turn my back on it at a young age. I remain fascinated by Christianity and religion in general for that matter, and have talked about this kind of thing plenty of times with Christians since, and you guessed it I'm still waiting for my answer. The God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is just not a nice guy by any stretch of the imagination.

If there are any Christians out there who adhere to the doctrine of sola fide; that's to say you attain salvation by faith alone and not on the basis of good works, which is what many people interpret the Bible as saying; I wonder how they'd respond to something I've put to evangelical types in the past:

Suppose that just before Hitler's death he was overcome with guilt, got down on his knees and begged the Lord for forgiveness, and decided to put his faith in Jesus and accept the sacrifice we are told he made to absolve all who would accept him of their sins. Are we to believe that if that had happened he would have died free of sin and therefore now be in Heaven? Meanwhile, are we to believe that all of those who died in the Holocaust who were not Christians (which is most of them) are now suffering eternal torment worse than anything we can imagine, and with no prospect of redemption now they've died and missed their chance? Would a just God allow a Christian Hitler to watch from Heaven as his millions of victims burned in Hell?

A religion whose teachings have consequences such as that is surely totally depraved.

If you believe in god, then you know that god created evil as well as good. Does this mean god doesn't mind evil? I think so, if you believe in god.

The argument as far as I was ever told is that Eve made Adam bite the apple and because of that all humans have been banished from paradise to wallow in our own filth. So now God just sits up in the clouds and watches us do the nasty to each other and whenever he decides it's gotten to ugly he's going to storm down and straighten things out. That's what I was taught in church, sunday school and read in the bible - and one of many reasons why I can't for the life of me understand what it is that inspires people in that book.

I don't really want to get into a religious debate through comments on this site. However, in response to Jake, I would like to know what the relevance of the apocalypse is to evil on earth (or if that was just a rant that you've been waiting for an excuse to give).

And to David: it seems foolish to give up on something at a young age. Do you really think that you had a full understanding of both options at that age?

And about the Hitler reference. According to Christian theology, if Hitler had repented of his sins and accepted Jesus, then any sins he had committed would have already been taken care of by Jesus' death. However, for the non-believers, because they did not accept Jesus as their savior, he cannot take their sins (though far fewer in number than Hitler's) as his own.

That's my understanding of Christian theology, at least. Is yours different? Because as far as I know, that's the authoritative view by theological scholars. If that's not how you look at it, perhaps you should check out Christianity again, and look into it a little deeper than the way a child would.

And about Christianity not having an explanation for pain: Check out the book at the link I posted above.

NQbass7: I didn't "give up" on Christianity at a young age, I just ceased to believe in its teachings so long as the big stack of problems I had remained unsolved. I'd still be open to renewed belief if someone could convince me I'm wrong about Christianity and the Bible is in fact the revealed word of God. As far as I can tell it's a solely human creation and a pretty flawed one at that. As I said, I'm somewhat fascinated by religion and what I've learned from Christians since I ceased to share their faith has only reinforced my belief that its claims are unconvincing and its moral dimension is objectionable. As far as I can tell from your response to the Hitler point, we have a pretty similar idea about what Christian theology has to say on the matter. My problem is that I find the consequences of that little thought experiment sick. If a just God sends Holocaust victims to Hell for failing to be convinced of the truth of the Christian message, while welcoming a hypothetical repentant Hitler into Heaven, then he is not just in any sense that I can understand. I find objectionable the belief that there is a God worthy of our faith and worship that can inflict needless suffering on innocents and generally act like some kind of cosmic Saddam Hussein. Going back to Norm's original post, either he isn't all-knowing, he isn't all-powerful, he isn't all-merciful, or he doesn't exist as described by Christians. I'm not an atheist, by the way, but I share with atheists a disbelief in the transcendent God of popular imagination and of Christian belief. I don't believe the universe was created by any divine power outside of itself. A pantheistic immanent "God" is a different matter altogether, in my opinion. The God posited by the Abrahamic religions and similar is not one I believe in, for a variety of reasons, but important among them being the problem of evil, which no one has ever been able to solve to my satisfaction. Once you start talking about an omnipotent creator God that exists independently of the universe and rules over it you are faced with difficult and perhaps insurmountable problems such as this. If the Christian God exists, he doesn't half make it difficult for thinking people to believe in him.

The problem of evil in the world is not incompatible with an all-knowing, all-loving God. Although I am not a Christian, and do not belive in God, I find the rationale sublime and will impart it here so that you don't continue to use the presence of evil to "prove" there is no God, or that there is a God but he is neither all-loving nor all-powerful. There are many other reasons not to believe in God. That evil exists is not one of them.

Here goes: At the beginning God existed, and being all good reasons that existence is good and should therefore be shared. In the Judeo-Christian tradition he then creates a race of angels, who turn against him, afterwhich he creates man, who also turn against him. If our concept of God is that of an all-loving being, why then does he create creatures capable of rape, murder, torture, etc, because surely these would be incompatible with what he wants? Because if he didn't allow humans the possibility of evil, he would be creating creatures without free will.

"Then why create creatures with free will," I can hear you asking. "Or why not just make the will of these creatures to always want to do good?"

Because in that case God wouldn't actually be CREATING anything. Humans would merely be extensions of himself: robots or joysticks if you will. In order to actually create something (and thus share the goodness of existence), you have to give your creatures free will, and thus, the possibility to turn against you. Turning against God (or setting yourself up as a God) is the sin of pride, which begins ALL sin.

Therefore it is not that God "likes" evil, or that he is powerless to stop it, but that he has given his creatures the choice to choose evil in order to properly "create" them. If you choose to do evil, then, it is not God who looks bad. It is you who have turned against him.

Again, I am not a Christian, nor do I believe in God. But I find this explanation satisfactory. If one were to apply it to the Fall of Man (which fundies don't, because they believe in a literal interpretation - Ugh), one could argue that the Fall of Man story is merely a metaphor for the choices we make everyday. It's like being on a diet. We know when we're on a diet what's good, but often choose to eat a piece of cake or a slice of pizza. Knowing the right path and doing otherwise is the conundrum of free will.

When I realated the apocalypse to the evil on earth, I was demonstrating that the end to all the evils that evey god-fearing man believes in is the inevitability of an end to the evils which most christians see in the apocalypse. If god sees it fit that one day he is fed up with all the horrible actions his creations have caused, then the evil that co-exists with him will need to be extricated i.e. the end of the world. And in the event that the evil of the Earth was destroyed by the almighty wouldn't that then make him evil by atrocity; thus making a paradox to believe in a god to which you think that all goodness comes?

Is it possible that the interpretation of the passion is merely that for man to be saved he must die? To live is to do evil, therefore to die is to achieve salvation, simple and sweet. On or off, no gray to worry our graying little brains. Too Occamish, I suppose. I can believe in a God only if I can believe that the Big Bang was God's fart or sneeze and we and the rest of the universe reside firmly wedged into the threads of God's handkerchief or underdrawers: take your pick. Or perhaps God is busy cleaning the evil from his other universes and needed a place to park his Hitlers, Bin Ladens and Bushes.

You don't have to be an atheist to reconcile the existence of evil. You just have to drop one of two assumptions: 1) That God is purely benevolent; or 2) God is all-powerful.

First of all you are asuming that christian theology is based in theism. Unfortunately it seems in the US that the loudest christian voices are theism. But they are extremest voices with a very corrupted version of Christianity. Mainstream Christianity (Catholic and Protestant) theology has been steadily moving away from it since the Age of enlightment. (17th, 18th Century?) To get a picture of serious modern theology, try the works of Loyd Gearing (think that's his name).

Some young children feel great suffering when their parents compel them to eat properly or brush their teeth, etc.; when they become adults, however, they realise these were not acts of evil but acts of love. Surely it's possible that we as a species are young children when it comes to understanding the suffering that an all-loving, all-knowing, all powerful god would put us though?

Then again, I don't find it a particurlarly important question. There're far better reasons not to spend life blindly believing in one of these all-loving, all-knowing, all powerful gods.

At a Christian church I used to attend (until earlier this year), it was said that evil is akin to EGO (an acronym for edging god out).

I hold that Evil occurs when we forget about God and allow our fear and selfishness to take hold- that is when we murder and commit war and steal and hurt others.

Therefore, the two are utterly reconcilable from a Deist point-of-view - God created all, and stepped back.... God does not step in and smite and cause AIDS and genocide, rather, God created us and lets us choose our path. When we choose fear and selfishness, (forgetting God), evil happens. Hence, we have Pat Robertson.

from my understanding of taoism there is no good without evil; there is a place for everything

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

"If a just God sends Holocaust victims to Hell for failing to be convinced of the truth of the Christian message, while welcoming a hypothetical repentant Hitler into Heaven, then he is not just in any sense that I can understand."

If God were just in the sense that I understand it, everyone would go to hell, because everyone has sinned. Just means punishing people for what they've done, and the punishment for sin is hell. However, he is merciful as well as just, and thus he offers the option of allowing you to lay your sins on his son, thereby making you clean and not having any sins. So a repented Hitler would have a completely clean slate. How is it not just to send a man with no sins to heaven, while those with sin go to hell?

"I find objectionable the belief that there is a God worthy of our faith and worship that can inflict needless suffering on innocents and generally act like some kind of cosmic Saddam Hussein." Who said that it is God that "inflicts" it upon us? The fact that he doesn't prevent it does not mean that he is not all-powerful, or that he is not all-knowing, or that he is not benevolent.

Like I said before, "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis explains it pretty well. If you are actually looking for an answer, read the book. If you're just looking for a reason to criticize Christianity, well.. I guess don't read the book and just keep pretending like it doesn't exist.

Hmmm, I'm being to wonder what the average age of posters on this site is. Seems like everyone's under 20 or maybe in their early 20s, the opinions and debate are just so 'high school'. Not to offend anyone, but people, in your 20s, believe me, you don't know jack about shit. You only think you do. Give it another 15 or 20 years, get some life under your belt. Then come back and blather on about life, the universe, and everything. Sheesh.

Whoops, bad typist, of course in the above post I should have typed:

I'm beginning to wonder what the average age...

I've written an entire book about this, it's that big a topic (maybe the biggest of them all, when you come right down to it). So here's a quick quote from it as my two cents for the moment: it addresses Norm's contention that you can't have rationality and a sense for the immanent at the same time in the same being. I feel that you can. It's what my book is about, and what my blogis about as well.

Now this may appear a new and perhaps odd way of working with the energies of the self, and one question that may arise would be, “how is this practice of communicating with different aspects of my personality, or with invisible energies of the Universe, going to help me in my family life or in my human relationships?” It’s a fair question that deserves a fair answer. The perspective on which this practice is formed is the same perspective that flows through this entire book: human growth, like the growth we see in Nature, occurs from the starting point of an unseen place or dimension within, and extends outwardly from there. We know that the growth of plants happens from a seed buried within the earth; the birth of babies and other animals is based on a conception that occurs within the female’s body; the origin of stars and galaxies in space can be traced to infinitesimal points of immense compression of matter and energy deep within nebulae. Just so, the transformations that happen in ourselves—in our lives, our careers, our relationships, our families—arise from deep within us, in an unfixed space where matter and energy, body and mind, part and whole, have no separate identity or meaning. When we enter this Presence within ourselves, and listen to its teaching voice, through a meditative practice such as the one described above, we are then concentrating our light-mass and giving it an energy that dissolves difficulty and multiplies the influence of small efforts. The result of this work of mindfulness is the effortless communication, spontaneous action, and unshakeable balance of one’s Whole Being in expression. Lao Tzu called this kind of influence wu-wei, or “unforced action.” We will have more to say about this in Chapter 6. The practices recommended in this book are simple and relatively effortless, and there are reasons that they are so. First of all, many of us have been through long hours and weeks of psychotherapy, or have gone on spiritual retreats, or have taken the drugs and pharmaceutical agents of change, or else have tried some of the complex regimens and disciplines of transformation that are offered within the various New Age movements; and they have not really worked enduringly for us. I think that’s because these are all based on either escape from trouble and estrangement or on a process of suffocating pain through a kind of chemical burial. Such approaches fail to awaken the total force of our combined personal energies, just as empty diversions and power-based roles of division within the family fail to arouse the natural energy—the wu-wei—of the relationships we have at home. Breaking up the members of a family into feudal units of specialist functions tends to create weakness in the Whole, followed by alienation and divorce. In the same way, splitting up the personality into compartments based on an organizational-chart kind of hierarchy, with Mind or Spirit as the Boss and Body or Feeling as the Servant, merely generates vulnerability, self-doubt, and depression. The meditations that are recommended in this book promote a sense of equality, which naturally extends itself to our outer relationships with our loved ones.

"Some young children feel great suffering when their parents compel them to eat properly or brush their teeth, etc.; when they become adults, however, they realise these were not acts of evil but acts of love. Surely it's possible that we as a species are young children when it comes to understanding the suffering that an all-loving, all-knowing, all powerful god would put us though?"

So what you're saying is, having a child whine about eating their vegetables and have to bare the "awful" taste is equivalent to a human of any age having to experience a concentration camp, tsunami, war,...[insert horrific incident of pain here]? That we just don't understand the meaning of that "evil", but that later on in life (or afterlife) we will even THANK him? If so, my next question is, "when does God's term end?"

"Therefore it is not that God "likes" evil, or that he is powerless to stop it, but that he has given his creatures the choice to choose evil in order to properly "create" them. If you choose to do evil, then, it is not God who looks bad. It is you who have turned against him."

That doesn't explain the reason for the existence of "evil" not caused by man. Aside from that, however, all humans are raised by other humans (with the exception of Tarzan). Some families are atheists themselves because they were taught from an early age not to believe in God. So should it be wise and moral to punish someone for the ideology they were going to inevitably have? Is it fair to be punished for all eternity for something you had no control over? It is easy for a believer to simply say, "Oh! Well that person had the choice to either believe in God or not and went the wrong way. Free Will! Free Will!" Really? Could you have chosen to have had religious parents and have them inculcate you with religious dogma at an early age?

Some say that "free will" with God does not mean what it means with humans. But how are we to understand this? What conditions of free will would a Christian scrap in order to craft a "free agency" for God? Multiple options? Desire? Freedom? Power? Potential to avoid?

Perhaps desire could be jettisoned. Desire implies a lack, and a perfect being should lack nothing. But it would be a very strange "person" with no needs or desires. Desire is what prompts a choice in the first place. It also contributes to assessing whether the decision was reasonable. Without desire, choices are willy-nilly, and not true decisions at all. Besides, the biblical god expressed many desires. --Dan Barker

"Hmmm, I'm being to wonder what the average age of posters on this site is. Seems like everyone's under 20 or maybe in their early 20s, the opinions and debate are just so 'high school'. Not to offend anyone, but people, in your 20s, believe me, you don't know jack about shit. You only think you do. Give it another 15 or 20 years, get some life under your belt. Then come back and blather on about life, the universe, and everything. Sheesh."

Bush is over the age of 20 and look at him. Need I say more? It is true that with age comes maturity, but to simply discredit the views and opinions of underaged individuals without rebuttaling their arguments seems a bit childish.

Point taken. I thought it might be a bit complex to try and explain the issue of age versus maturity, but you're right. Some people reach 75 and die without ever having properly matured. Some 20-somethings are quite mature, although it's very few. At that age you think you've got the world figured out, you have deep philosophical discussions about things you really have no experience of. I'm guilty of it myself, if I could travel back in time to when I was in university, I'd kick my ass. What a moron, as I said before, I truly didn't know jack about shit, but I sure thought I did.

My point is that much of the debate on this site and many of the opinions posted seem very 'high school'. Or maybe not high school, perhaps it's a university attitude, that's probably more accurate. That whole university-age 'we're so smart and educated and really digging into the issues of the world', when in fact once you've been out of university for a decade or so, you'll realize that you didn't know jack about shit.

I doubt many mature people with a broad and deep life experience would hold the views I often see expressed here.

Life, The Universe, and Everything perhaps you'd be willing to offer us some of your wisdom or share some of the views held by someone with a broad and deep life experience?

"...if I could travel back in time to when I was in university, I'd kick my ass. What a moron, as I said before, I truly didn't know jack about shit, but I sure thought I did."

Hey, I'm in a university right now and there's NO way that I think that I have it all "figured out." I don't walk around with that sort of mindset, nor do I approach any problems like that. I'm usually being constantly reminded of how little I know both academically and in "real world" terms.

Furthermore, I rarely come to any solid or satisfying conclusions regarding ANY issues (be they political, epistemological, ontological, ethical, or a mix of them). To automatically discredit yourself at a young age for considering or discussing things about which you may have had no experience is really pretty silly and counterproductive. After all, many people have little to no experience of certain things in life all throughout their lives. I don't have any experience starving in some "Third World" country, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't begin thinking about it (and I'm sure that you'd agree.) Perhaps we're thinking of different things--and perhaps you were being slightly facetious in your comment, which I can appreciate!--but I have to wonder why there's this sort of negative attitude out there.

Life, The Universe, and Everything, I have to disagree with the your comment on opinions, and stating they are not of a mature level. All opinions regardless of what they are, are valid, mature or not. The problem truly arises when people refuse to re-evaluate their opinions when faced with new facts and ideas often brought by other peoples opinions. The real issue lies with the situation where you feel your opinion must be right and completely right, discarding the other person opinion. That is truly where someone is being immature.

"People don't understand... God is the ultimate comedian playing to an audience too scared to laugh"

 - Victor Hugo

We had better hope that other life forms don't find us for a long time, if ever. How childish, backwards and pathetic we are. Claiming to have made advances for our species, this that and the other. In reality, most people are still dragging around the mystic ball and chain of a religion.
Steve Martin, playing the butcherous barber Theodoric of York on an SNL skit once said, "Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach." Can we really say we are creatures of intelligence, logic, or that we have reached a new threshold of scientific fact and reason when nine of ten of our species believe in something as absurd as organized religion? Most people still operate completely within the reptilian core of the human brain: Fear, Agression and the urge to procreate. We are so absurd in our self-confidence that we need someone like Douglas Adams to point out how small our accomplishments and advances truly are.

im agnostic and have lately leaned toward the theistic side. my intuition says there is a god out there.

the bottom line is, however, that if HUMANS who happen to be religious fanatics, would be more reasonable about society (e.g. pat robertson) and adopt a view of liberation theology and the "good" religious values (love thy neighbor, etc), talking about the problem of evil would be a non-issue. people would then actually work to stop evil, and the argument could be made that in the afterlife God will judge everyone's deep moral character, not just their denomination or political views.

Thanks for proving a point. When I was in university I used words like 'epistemological' and 'ontological' too. 'Facetious' was another word we'd throw around late at night sipping our coffees.

After a while I realized nobody really uses those words much outside university. And if I heard someone using words like that, it was a 99 percent guarantee the person was self-absorbed and trying to impress people around him/her.

Get some life under your belt, and you'll begin to realize that we simply are. To have faith or to not have faith just is. God is truth for some and for others not.

Just be real. But so many of us are not. And we bathe ourselves in self important discussions and we use big words and we ponder big ideas, not realizing the universe is far stranger than we can dream. This is what I mean, it's all so high school. Looking back on high school I'm sure we can all agree the stuff we thought was world shaking was actually trivial.

The simple fact that this site would post an entry which tries to argue against the existence of God, it's boring Introduction to Philosophy class stuff.

I just find this whole site (and I've stopped by for a long, long time, just to check out Daily Show clips) to be spiraling downward into some really bad posts, digging into the same issues every kid in a university philosophy class gets into, and making all the same clueless mistakes.

It's everything that's wrong with the world. Work on who you are, and what you do, and when you're finished maybe then you can offer some guidance to others.

But right now, this site seems like a second year philosophy major spouting old news.

"I think C.S. Lewis is pretty good at being reasonable."--nqbass7

In a recent NYTimes article, a scientist was saying how CS Lewis' Mere Christianity helped him understand how there is a law of human nature or a kind of absolute morality...whatever. I just picked up a used copy of Mere Christianity. It's interesting.

I just got to a point in the book where CS Lewis says Christianity is a fighting religion. He gives an example of how believers find themselves in a dark or 'evil' world and they must fight to right the world. It's a world that is occupied by evil forces and Christians are like rebels. Well, Mere Christianity was written in 1943 and that might be called a time of 'evil'.

I wonder what he would think today. Were things so bad in America that we needed to go to war? Or are things so bad now that we need to stop a war? Which is the good course? Evil course? Who makes these decisions? Based on what rationale? Do all Christians feel the war is justified? Justifying war was perhaps easier in the times before WW2. I'm not christian, but it seems Today's war is debatable even between Christians.

CS Lewis seems to think there is a law of human nature and that people feel they ought to be following it, but aren't and that is why the world is in turmoil. Lewis is definately postmodern. He goes on to say that there is duality in Christianity that pits a good god against a dark force (He that must not be named) that was once a good creation of god that has gone bad.

Well, back to the book....

Your argument depends on god being all loving- which most scripture from most religions (despite what the adherents love to believe) show that god (Christian or Hindu or whatever) is not all-loving. According to the written testimony of these faiths god is actually spiteful and ruthless in many ways, and perhaps that is the god that actually exists... You are arguing against the existence of a benevolent god (a worthy endeavor), not the existence of god in general.

I saw the movie Constantine last night, and my favorite quote was this:

"God's a kid with an ant farm, lady. He's not planning anything."

Because really, if god does exist, that is the only explanation for the state we find ourselves in.

When a hurricane hits it’s neutral and has nothing to do with free will. So you can take the free will argument and shove it. If Christ is a choice and a way out why is it hard and unclear that it offers a way out of anything? For me to believe in Christ I would have to drop any semblance of sanity I have, and embrace something ambiguous unclear and irrational. What of all those Hindu's that lived for thousands of years before the birth of Christ are they all in hell? What of people who live after Christ that never knew of him? What about intelligent forms of life on other planets that suffer and die are they screwed? For Christ to be a real choice I would have to get in a car wreck and suffer serious brain damage. I am a thinking person; I can’t just throw my rational mind into the garbage and keep a straight face. Is my sin my intellect? Tell me Normina what kind of brain surgery I need to get to make free will an option of choosing Christ as my savior? What if I told you that you need to accept Mickey Mouse as your savior could you accept that and rationally live with yourself?

"Because really, if god does exist, that is the only explanation for the state we find ourselves in." - stacey

What amuses me most is listening to people who after a few minutes/months/years of thought, are confident they've got this 'whole God thing' figured out.

If there is a god, and if he/she in any way resembles the idea of the Christian God (omnipotent, omniscient, etc.) then it is the pinnacle of stupidity and arrogance to believe that we could ever begin to totally have him/her figured out. This goes equally for Christians who believe they completely understand God's divine plan, and for those others who believe that they've found the 'logical flaw' with Christianity.

To an omnipotent, omniscient God, we would likely resemble small children, thinking we 'know' everything, and completely ignorant of the larger world around us. We do not give the complaints of children any more weight than they deserve, because we recognize their inability to see the world from the perspective of adults. And (I believe) many of us share those children's inability to recognize how little we really know and understand.

Personally I believe there is a God, and that he is all-loving. But that is a matter of personal faith, which is where faith belongs. It's when people want to start 'inflicting' their faith on others than all the problems begin.

When a hurricane hits it’s neutral and has nothing to do with free will. So you can take the free will argument and shove it. If Christ is a choice and a way out why is it hard and unclear that it offers a way out of anything? For me to believe in Christ I would have to drop any semblance of sanity I have, and embrace something ambiguous unclear and irrational. What of all those Hindu's that lived for thousands of years before the birth of Christ are they all in hell? What of people who live after Christ that never knew of him? What about intelligent forms of life on other planets that suffer and die are they screwed? For Christ to be a real choice I would have to get in a car wreck and suffer serious brain damage. I am a thinking person; I can’t just throw my rational mind into the garbage and keep a straight face. Is my sin my intellect? Tell me Normina what kind of brain surgery I need to get to make free will an option of choosing Christ as my savior? What if I told you that you need to accept Mickey Mouse as your savior could you accept that and rationally live with yourself?

You assume (like too many Christians) a greater understanding of Christianity (and Christ) that you have any right to. The bible does not say that Hindus living before Jesus' time all go to hell (nor does it say that the ones who live after him do either), and it seems unlikely that a God who is supposed to embody love would act in such an unloving way.

Too often it's the case that our views of a religion (i.e. Christianity) are based on the views of the people practicing it. People are stupid. So why would you judge Christianity (or any religion for that matter) on how a bunch of stupid people describe it?

Many people (they just tend to be the quieter ones) believe that the key messages of Christianity are humility, forgiveness, and love. They just don't make headlines by calling for the assassinations of foreign leaders.

To "Life, The Universe, and Everything":

I had a string of situations in my twenties and early thirties where I remembered something I had done or said when I was younger and was deeply embarrassed by the memory. Each time, I thought to myself "wow, it's so good that I've outgrown that immaturity." Sometime in my late thirties I had the insight that I would keep having that experience for the rest of my life.

Now, if you'll excuse me, here is where I point out that if I had written the things that you have written here, sometime in the next few months I would probably be very embarrassed.

Disclaimer: I'm 24 and don't know jack about shit.

I would suggest that a good place to start understanding what Christianity is "supposed" to be about, or to know the spirit in which it was started, would be to actually read what Jesus is said to have done, and evaluate it from there. 2000 years have passed since he was alive and a lot of this "high-school" talk has been going on among men and women (but mostly men) of a much older and loftier stature than us high-school or undergradders, and today the word "Christian" means a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people, and the fact that it was based on this guy Jesus is sort of put to the side. Don't worry! I'm not trying to convert anyone here, far from it, but if you start talking about Christianity it does make sense to bring Christ into it.

A lot of talk on this post is about people doing evil to other people, and the possibility of forgiveness and mercy for them, etc. It is said that Jesus ate with the tax collectors (what we would see as corrupt politicians, or at least their lackies) as well as non-Jews (and since Jesus was a Jew and supposedly the saviour of the Jews, at that time, this would have been a sure-fire way to lose all credibility and popularity), and said something to the effect of "Love your enemy", not just your neighbour...

Is that crazy? from the talk on this post it sounds as if that would be the general consensus...but do we know what love truly is? Do we only love those whom we know love us in return? Do we hate those we see doing "evil" and want them to pay for it? If we were gods would we want the "evil" people like Hitler to burn in hell? If someone asked for our forgiveness and you intuited that they were truly sorry would you forgive them or no?

As far as I'm concerned, you can't learn about love or hate or good or evil or God from anyone else, you can only get from others some insight into your own search, and in the end the understanding of any of these has to come from within. And it is my understanding that only through the act of love will you understand it, only through the act of doing good or doing justice(and I'm not talking about outward things that have the appearance of good or justice) will one understand them...so where does understanding of God come from, or for that matter the universe, without actually being those things? It sure won't come from talking about it....

For some reason reading through all these posts made me think of this: its a Sufi quote that goes somewhere along the lines of:

God slept in the realm of the Minerals God dreamt in the realm of Plants God woke in the realm of the Animals God became aware of himself in the Human

Peace

To "Life, The Universe, and Everything":

I had a string of situations in my twenties and early thirties where I remembered something I had done or said when I was younger and was deeply embarrassed by the memory. Each time, I thought to myself "wow, it's so good that I've outgrown that immaturity." Sometime in my late thirties I had the insight that I would keep having that experience for the rest of my life.

I can guarantee you I will not be embarrassed. And I'll tell you why. Four times in my life I've come so close to death. Stupid young violent days. Took four times, but I get it now and I've been living it. Look around you. All that stuff you see, it means nothing. Money. House. Job. Stuff. Nothing.

People are what matters. Who you are and what you do. Relationships. Love.

A few months from now I might hold a completely different view. I can easily contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.

But to be embarrassed about something I wrote in a blog? Dude, that couldn't happen if I tried.

This is too easy, stirring things up in Blog World. Kids these days. Sheesh. I'm done with this Intro to Philosophy blog.

Well, first of all, GREAT POST, NORM! I love to read your thoughts! I believe part of the problem is that a lot of people in this world think that Jesus, according to the Bible, was “so loving”. The Bible is filled with contradictions. Here are some of my favorites; Luke 19:27 (Jesus: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me”) Mathiew 10:34 (Jesus: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword”.) There are so many quotes that contradict the general ideology that Jesus followers espouse. The Exodus 21:20 is a good one, too (When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property) There are hundreds more. My conclusion: Toilet paper makes better use of paper than a Bible. To the Bible followers: If you believe the Bible contains teachings to live by then accept all of it or none of it. It could be said of Scott Peterson that he took his son to little league games and liked to grow flowers in the back yard. He did a lot of nice things. You could choose to look at only the good parts but if you look at the entire picture, you would have to include the part where he killed his wife and unborn child. Look at the big picture. And IF God created everything…who created God?

The whole problem is moot because there is no such thing as evil or good or anything else.....just stuff we see as bad and horrible from our perspective....but from the perspective of the universe everything is just atoms bumbing into each other. On the micro scale of course it is good to try to avoid pain so that is why ethics exists...so we strive to cause as little pain to ourselves and others as possible. When I hear the casualty reports from Iraq for example, or for a bombing in Israel for example, I feel worse when I hear about the 20 or so injured people rather than the 2-3 killed.....the dead feel no pain....

Reason, logic, and rational thought are mathematics based tools for understanding our world. They don't work well in families and social groups.

There is a way that seems right to a man that leads to his destruction. God's ways are not man's ways. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Every person should pray for wisdom. The truth sets us free. A relationship with the Lord, Jesus Christ, sets people free and liberates them from slavery to sin.

Sin is the central problem of a person's life. Unchecked it will destroy everything he loves. Sin starts with pride. Proud logical people seek power and power alienates them from the love of their wives and families. It isolates them from God and they lose the purity and holiness that Godly men and women have.

If you have ever known a person who is submitted to the will of Jesus Christ you have experienced this purity of spirit. It will make you cry when you see it. That is why Christianity works and why even though Jesus died, he lives.

So you admit then, that God exists?

Why are you so angry at Him?

norm, dude. you and your site rocks, but you've gotta use question marks occasionally...

Chronotis34: "When a hurricane hits it’s neutral and has nothing to do with free will. So you can take the free will argument and shove it. If Christ is a choice and a way out why is it hard and unclear that it offers a way out of anything? For me to believe in Christ I would have to drop any semblance of sanity I have, and embrace something ambiguous unclear and irrational. What of all those Hindu's that lived for thousands of years before the birth of Christ are they all in hell? What of people who live after Christ that never knew of him? What about intelligent forms of life on other planets that suffer and die are they screwed? For Christ to be a real choice I would have to get in a car wreck and suffer serious brain damage. I am a thinking person; I can’t just throw my rational mind into the garbage and keep a straight face. Is my sin my intellect? Tell me Normina what kind of brain surgery I need to get to make free will an option of choosing Christ as my savior? What if I told you that you need to accept Mickey Mouse as your savior could you accept that and rationally live with yourself?"

Maybe you misunderstood me. I wasn't trying to promote the idea of 'free will'. Re-read again.

Jim, well said.

Perhaps our friend Life Universe should return to university, as he/she has forgotten the basics of logical fallacies.

e.g. argument from age (or maturity).

Very snobby and a poor way to make an argument.

To Jef who said:

Luke 19:27 (Jesus: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me”) Mathiew 10:34 (Jesus: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword”.) There are so many quotes that contradict the general ideology that Jesus followers espouse. The Exodus 21:20 is a good one, too (When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property)...

You haven't actually read the bible have you? Because if you had you would know that Exodus was before the time of Jesus, it's the Old Testament. The teachings of Christ replace all that, but not for Jewish people who don't believe Jesus was the son of God.

And your other 'contradiction' examples aren't correct either. What both those passages actually mean is that you either choose to follow Jesus or you choose not to follow Jesus. Those that follow Jesus have eternal life, those that do not are 'slain' meaning they do not have eternal life. Jesus is a 'sword' that separates the world into people who follow and people who don't. It doesn't mean Jesus has a sword and he goes around hacking people's heads off.

Maybe you need to take some time and learn what the teachings of Jesus really are, because you obviously don't actually know.

The Problem of Evil has been solved by Ken Gemes, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. A sample "[C]onsider the world we know and inhabit. It is a possible world, hence one that God has thought of. Furthermore, our world pretty clearly, pace Descartes, contains evil. Now God being perfect would not create a world containing evil. Ergo God did not create this world, he merely thought of it. Our world then is a merely possible world, one God thought of but chose not to create. Presumably it was his knowledge of the evil in this world which led him to decide that it was beneath creation. The actual world is some other world that contains none of the evil of this world or any other possible world."

Not everyone, admittedly, may like the solution, but I'm convinced it's the only one in the offing, absent rejection of some other premise that those exercised by the problem typically want to retain.

The Problem of Evil has been solved by Ken Gemes, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Um. Yeah. He's totally thought of all the angles.

Now God being perfect would not create a world containing evil.

This is the kind of dumb, 'logical' argument that makes me wince. Where's the proof of this statement? Since we have no tangible example of a perfect God to examine, how could we flawed humans possibly begin to believe that we can predict what a perfect God would choose to create?

The more palatable statement would be that a perfect God would not make any mistakes in creating this world, so it would perfectly match his intention.

Ken's solution is hardly the only one in the offing, and like most of these 'logical' arguments to explain why God did/didn't do something, serves as little more than one philosophical supposition after another.

Here, here. I'll have to voice some agreement with Life, the Universe and Everything (but only in this one area). This site is like a philosphy wannabe hangout, talking about the fallacy of this and the logic about that.

Unless you have a masters degree or better in philosophy (which I do), maybe keep your trap shut about complex philosophical arguments.

Many of you posters don't realize how basic and simple your 'big theories and ideas' really are. This ground has been covered, a lot of you are going on about stuff that you really don't know anything about. Especially including the original posting on this site about the Problem of Evil, which I doubt I would even give a passing grade to in the introductory level classes I teach.

Nuff said.

Interesting discussion. I've never had any trouble reconciling God and pain/suffering/evil, and despite my best efforts I honestly can't understand the variations on the argument "The world sucks therefore God doesn't exist." My religion has given me satisfactory answers (well satisfactory to me, anyway) to each of the questions Norima and others posed.

Starting with a statement that we can all agree with: There is suffering in the world. Assume for a minute that there is a god who created this suffering world, who has the power to change things but in many cases chooses not to. Then the common argument is He's either not all powerful or that He's a big meanie. I say that to resolve that, one needs to have some idea about why He went to the trouble to create a world at all. Without knowing the 'why' we have a hard time judging if God's method is successful or sadistic. There hasn't been much discussion here about the purpose of life, which to me is key to understanding evil in the world.

Countless arrogant philosophy teachers like Dr. Phil Osophy (the above poster) cause untold suffering among their unwary students. Dr. Phil here has the ability to mitigate their suffering by simply giving them an A, but chooses not to. No, by his process of subjecting them to tedious lectures he hopes to cause changes in his students; to turn them into philosophers.

Football coaches make their players keep running long after they're already tired. Players find that even after they've given all they thought they had, they can still go on a little more. Even though the players suffer, the coaches hope that they will finally become athletes.

I could go on and on, but a parent who takes the training wheels off his kid's bike, knowing that skinned knees or worse will be the result, is neither powerless nor sadistic.

I hope my point, though indirect, is clear -Mike

Phil seems to think it requires a degree in philosophy to discuss philosophical questions. He says this particular ground has been covered, of course its been covered, what's his point? There are few questions in philosophy that haven't been covered. He teaches introductory classes in philosophy, why does he bother, that ground has already been covered. Was there something specific in the original post he took exception too, he doesn't say. Does he think I got the problem wrong? He doesn't say. Did he just need a forum to tell everyone how smart he is, a reasonable assumption. All he's demonstrated so far is his arrogance. What kind of asshole tries to silence discussion with his qualifications. He could have used it as an opportunity to teach. He didn't. Is this one of the teaching skills he employs with his students. Let's hope not. Perhaps Phil would like to tell us more about himself. His specific qualifications, where he teaches, the email address of his department head. I'm sure he'd like to know how Phil promotes philosophy. Nuff said.

I thought this might be a clue? God is a dj? Takes time to load, maybe that's a clue too.

link doesn't work: http://doubleedgefilms.com/spin/player.html

Please Read C.S. Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" The one thing I however tend to see on sites like this is an intollerence for faith based beliefes. I being a Christian don't necissarilly agree with the whole right wing Agenda however I do see a problem with the fact of people ripping into Christians for being intollerable while to me it seems that the same one's accusing are being downright intollerable of other people's beliefs. It seems to be a double edged sword. I have been downright mocked and made fun of about beliefs from people who claim to be left wing political agents for things that I necessarily don't believe in. I never started problems with these people they just knew i was a Christian so it was bash the Christian time. The Christians you see on TV DO NOT Represent the entire faith and the people who believe.