Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

>>17826530 (OP)
>Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
No

>>17826530 (OP)
Ye of little faith.
Oh well. Good thing you won't need any where your going fuckface
Enjoy Hell

Evil is the lack of god

>>17826557
Isaiah 45:7
>I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

>>17826530 (OP)
>Then he is malevolent.
well he is. there's no reason why he shouldn't be.
>inb4 muh 2000 years old tale book

>>17826665
>well he is. there's no reason why he shouldn't be
Please retvrn to r/atheism.

>>17826566
A better translation is “I being calamity” which you would expect from a just God.
>>17826530 (OP)
The problem with your argument is that it assumed you know all ends. What is evil from your limited perspective (your end) is not necessarily evil for someone who can see the whole picture.

>>17826673
all-loving god is human-made concept

>>17826547
Being able to prevent something bad from happening and refusing to do so is called criminal negligence.
Human beings can go to jail because of it, but if God does it it's no biggie?

>>17826530 (OP)
"A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell, mouths mercy, and invented hell, mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused soul to worship him!" --Mark Twain

>>17826550
>>17826673
Lol at these non-answers

>>17826852
Argument from ignorance: "you're not omniscient so you can't know for sure that God isn't good".

Meaning that you, an equally flawed human being, cannot be sure that he is good either. It might very well be nothing but wishful thinking

>>17826976
You are assuming that I follow the same pattern of thinking aa you. I believe God is good based on scripture, you are telling me he cannot be good for said reasons, I replied by showing you it is not the case. Also are you admitting that we both cannot know if God is good or bad? If yes, then you have contradicted what you said in the OP.

>>17826967
>make good children
This would imply predestination, he creates the souls and allows them to rebel or obey.
>gave his angels eternal happiness unearned.
2 Peter 2:4 destroys this false insertion.
>[4] For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment:
>cursed his children
You are assuming you know all ends.
>mouths justice, invented hell
Obviously, how can he be just if he does not punish those who deserve it? Do you believe it to be just for mass murders and pedophiles to go to heaven?
>forgiveness
You must confess that you actually sinned to be forgiven, he is always clear. You cannot just go murder people, refuse to confess you were wrong, and expect forgiveness.
>has none [morals] himself
By which standard are you judging whether he has morals or not? He is the very one who gave these morals.
>frowns upon crimes but commits them all
How are you deciding what even is a crime?
>responsibility upon himself
He warned the man not to act as such through revelation. But gave him the choice to rebel.
>Mark Twain
Why do people quote this retarded faggot?

>>17826530 (OP)
There is a third one.
>Is he both able and willing? Then whence evil?
This is the key one because it shows that the "paradox" doesn't lead to any particular conclusion. It leads to wonder. And you are completely within your right to wonder why evil happens, even though I have yet to see anyone invest a similar amount of effort into figuring out why good things happen. Perhaps this fascination with certain things happening isn't an analytical concern, but an emotional one. And that is fine.

>>17827052
Good is a concept that can only be understood temporally. And the good, relative to us, is the maintenance of certain "forms".
>The health and longevity of the human body is considered good.
>The stability of the family unit is considered good.
>A strong economy is considered good.
>A strong justice system is considered good.
When something is good it fulfills its function. It requires the destruction and consumption of other things to continue to function, however, since a thing can only function if energy is put into it. Take peace, for example. It is considered good, yet it is the absence of the evil of conflict. Why do we fight? For resources. Even when people fight for abstract concepts like rights or love, even that has material ends. So what is evil? Evil is the destruction of forms that we consider good. Like the death of people we think do not merit it. Or the fall of a civilization. Likewise, natural disasters that bring calamity to us are also considered evil. Good exists as long as there is free energy to give form to the chaotic subtrate that our universe consists of. Chaos is evil, form is good.

>>17827060
I agree being (having a form) is good. Your health is you existing. Your longevity is existence in time. Stability and strength is certainty of existence. etc. And I would take it a step further in that I don't see that we have to limit goodness to temporal reality. And from what I vaguely understand about various traditions, many describe some timeless reality as good as well.

How does this relate to the 'paradox'? Are you saying the question really is "whence chaos"?

>>17827085
Precisely. And yet chaos in itself is not an evil thing, it is simply a formless, timeless, and infinite wellspring of potentiality. It is the only thing that can truly endure. Not unlike descriptions of God. Just as the form of the universe comes out of the structuring of this chaotic substrate, so do we come from God. So perhaps the greater question we should be asking is, why is God what God is?

>>17827097
Chaos in a detached physical-model type of thinking wouldn't be evil, but that's just because the model apriori rejects ethical judgement. For all intends and purposes chaos is evil unless it is serving a higher order.
>why is God what God is?
How is this a greater question?

>>17827103
>For all intends and purposes chaos is evil unless it is serving a higher order.
Not necessarily, it's only the chaos that is proximate to us. Is chaos a galaxy away from us truly evil? Eventually, perhaps, but not now. I agree with you anyway that it simply is a matter of whether or not it serves our purposes.
>How is this a greater question?
My second point is that it's not necessarily a greater question, but rather equivalent. We say, why chaos? How about, why is God how he is? It's the same thing. Is God perfection or is God formless? If God is perfection then it implies structure, which then means that he is energized by another source. If he himself self-subsists and energizes others, then he is formless and thus chaotic. To be in the direct presence of the sun would destroy us, from our perspective it looks chaotic, but at a distance it looks perfect, ordered, and energizes us.

>>17827116
>Is chaos a galaxy away from us truly evil? Eventually, perhaps
Is a star we've never observed truly bright?
>Is God perfection or is God formless?
I think I understand now why I was confused about the question. The monotheistic God is usually said to be beyond description or duality, to each categorization one would be required to answer both yes and no (with a few Tradition-related caviats). There were schools of thought that really put a lot of stock into the attribute of One-ness, hence simplicity, hence non-chaos but also non-order etc. But I'm not part of those schools and I cannot really elaborate on that. For all I know God is Jesus Christ.

>>17827014
>I believe God is good based on scripture
So you are assuming it as a matter of faith. That's fine I guess, I simply wouldn't do the same myself

>>17827125
It is logical to assume that God is good because good exist, an evil god woudlnt have bothered creating anything good. Beauty, joy, happiness, pleasures, this are signs of a good God.

>>17827137
>Beauty, joy, happiness, pleasures, this are signs of a good God.

All things you can get addicted to

>>17827152
The addiction would be bad. Not joy.

>>17826530 (OP)
have no idea what those words mean.
God punishes evil.

>>17827137
>>17826852
Why may you not just as well assume that god created good things to ultimately suffer evil and suffering among humans?

>>17827196
The good is too meaningful. When a man has a son and feels the joy of fatherhood. That bond that is created is too meaningful to have been created by an evil god. That is true beauty in this life. Beauty of heart.

>>17827206
And when that son dies of cancer in his fifth year? When all the sons and daughters of a man are struck down by plague? When foreign invaders kill or enslave them before his own eyes? Is that god?

>>17826557
>Where can I go from your spirit?
>Or where can I flee from your presence?
>If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
>if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
What does this Psalm mean if not that God is everywhere, even with the dead?

>>17826852
>A better translation is “I being calamity”
Crossroaches will insist reading the Bible is critical and not even be able to identify the most blatant merisms.

>>17827137
>It is logical to assume that God is good because good exist, an evil god woudlnt have bothered creating anything good
Why would a good god bother creating anything evil? You will find any answer to this question can be reversed. Read Hume

>>17827391
It means you cannot run from God. But you can choose to act against his will and end up not being able to perceive God at all. That's what is meant by "lack of God" in the Catholic catechism (or wherever they wrote this). It's a description of an experience, not of an objective model of reality.

>>17827402
>Why would a good god bother creating anything evil?
He wouldn't. Which is why he didn't. You will find reversing is only possible in dualism. Which is not granted.

>>17827402
Evil is to my punish sin. God allows man to sin because those who chose not to sin in this world of sin are valuable to him.

>>17827412
>evil is to my punish sin. God allows man to sin because those who chose not to sin in this world of sin are valuable to him.
Here is what I mean when I say these arguments are reversible.
>Good is to reward sin. God allows man to work righteousness because those who chose to sin in this world are valuable to him.
How is this any less plausible, logically, than what you wrote?

>>17827417
It is less plausible because you're ignoring the content of the words you're working with and your main focus is mostly whether they make grammatical sense or not. I can do to arguments are reversibility the same thing you did to evil and sin.

>these arguments are reversible.
Here is what I mean when I say these arguments are reversible.
>these arguments are NOT reversible.
How is this any less plausible, logically, than what you wrote?

It's less plausible, logically, because logic was barely involved at all.

>>17827406
So there is no such thing as evil?
>You will find reversing is only possible in dualism.
Can you tell me what you mean by that, maybe with an example? It seems obvious to me rather that dualistic accounts of creation can't be reversed, and monist accounts beginning with a good first principle can't explain evil at all.
See pic related

>>17827425
>It is less plausible because you're ignoring the content of the words you're working with and your main focus is mostly whether they make grammatical sense or not.
No I'm not, but please forgive me if I misconstrued your argument. Let me explain, you said:
>evil is to my punish sin. God allows man to sin because those who chose not to sin in this world of sin are valuable to him.
So, 1) Good God created evil so that evil people can be punished. Is this not what you were trying to say, or can you explain how this makes more sense of our world than "evil God created good so that evil people can be rewarded"?
2) Good God gave us the ability to freely choose good or evil so we can reveal to him our orientation to him, and he can reward the good and punish the bad. Is this not what you were trying to say, or can you explain how this makes no logical sense if it's rather the case that God punishes the good and rewards the wicked?

>>17827426
Sure there is. And we made it.
>>You will find reversing is only possible in dualism.
>Can you tell me what you mean by that, maybe with an example?
Good question, I should have been more specific. In dualism you would treat good and evil as two substances, like for example air and water. Glass is half full of water or it's full of air and these two battle for space, each being a thing in itself. If that is true, you can make almost exactly the same arguments about the one as you do about the other.

In monism that is not the case. Good and evil are more like Being and Nonbeing. Nonbeing by definition doesn't exist, in its essence it's not even a thing, but we use the term to signify a direction: decay, dissolution, un-becoming... In this case Good objectively exists, but Evil is just a fracturing of the Good and ultimately does not have actual existence. Those fractures are good in themselves, just like shards of a broken plate still has being, but it no longer has that holistic goodness/being that the whole plate had.

>picrel
Well written, but I would point out in this text the same (imho flawed) premises that most other commentaries include:
>Individualism
Individualism is very cognitively convenient, but it is by no means a default framework. You are not only "insufficient for your own happines", you are insufficient for your own existence. You were born to your parents. To then lament that during this existence you have to interact with others is to impose individualism onto something where little to no individualism can exist to begin with.
>pains and pleasures
I'm not going to pretend I enjoy pain, but I would neither pretend that hurtful things are inherently evil or that pleasurable things are inherently good. I would expect good things to be pleasurable, and in my Faith that's ultimately what it's going to be, but the signal itself isn't to be confused with the ontological goodness or evil.
>source of all things is entirely indifferent
Why?

>>17827417
What you wrote is nonsense.

>>17827425
>>these arguments are reversible.
>Here is what I mean when I say these arguments are reversible.
>>these arguments are NOT reversible.
>How is this any less plausible, logically, than what you wrote?
Inverting a claim isn't reversing an argument by the way. The reason your own argument reversed sounds as silly to you as the above is because your argument is more like a claim, and doesn't hold water.

If you don't know what I mean, trying ti reversing Hume's argument (>>17827426) might be insightful.

>>17827445
Yes, because what I inverted is nonsense. Make an argument.

>>17827450
>reversing Hume's argument
Look around this universe... But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, one of many beings worth regarding. How cooperative and productive to each other! How participative in each other's happiness! How heart-warming to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a provident nature... pouring forth from her lap, with great care, her diverse and life-endowed children.

The true conclusion is, that the original source of all things is exactly biased towards heat over cold, to light over darkness, to life over death, for there could have been just an eternity of perfectly cold, perfectly dark and perfectly lifeless universe, yet here we are.

I'm not sure if I reversed it but it's fun to play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate.

>>17826530 (OP)
God is both willing and able and is currently in the middle of eradicating evil once and for all. Once he accomplish it he will awake from death all who rejected evil, who's name he wrote in the book of life to enjoy of this evil-less world.

>>17827457
You're just nonsensical. What I wrote made perfect sense, what you replied didnt.

>>17827443
>Sure there is. And we made it.
This seems like a dissonant beginning. "There is", "such thing" as that which is "not even a thing"? The point seems to be that the creator of every-thing didn't create a non-thing, so in what real sense can "we"?
Hume of course took it for granted that the "strange mixture of good and ill" was not an illusion.
>Evil is just a fracturing of the Good and ultimately does not have actual existence. Those fractures are good in themselves, just like shards of a broken plate still has being, but it no longer has that holistic goodness/being that the whole plate had.
How is it not the case that God is responsible for the fracturing? I mean, is the Good here existence, or Creation? Because if you make the clay and throw the plate and fire it, and the plate doesn't hold together, it's your fault.
This has the same problem presented by other monist schemes - if the beginning is a monistic Good and the end so much as "no longer has that holistic goodness", some dual thing has supervened, even if it's relegated to a change in form.

To restate the OP, if David Parker Ray and the Mongol deveatation is simply God's perfection moving in the "direction of un-becoming", what started the movement, why doesn't the Good hold still?