Thread 17975664

Answer I gave to a Catholic who said that God does not create evil:

"God does not create evil."


Isaiah 45:7
7I form the light and create darkness,
I bring peace (well, shalom) and bring disaster (evil, rah in Hebrew);
I, the Lord, do all these things.

"Ahh, but I'm Catholic, the Bible for me is just an accessory that I use when convenient."

Then throw that book away altogether and openly embrace Plato and Aristotle. Because always needing to resort to both to defend religion in the face of biblical madness is laughable.
"What is absurd in the Bible I say is metaphor or that it needs to go through exegesis."
Then it's easy...just accept what is convenient.

And even then it would be a problem, because Thomas Aquinas himself, whom you love to quote but don't actually read, said that proving an Aristotelian First Cause or Platonic Supreme Good (an abstraction that would give existence to reality by sustaining it) would NOT PROVE CHRISTIANITY AT ALL.

Aquinas himself says this. That Christianity will always be a matter of pure faith, because its philosophy can in no way justify Christianity, only serving to say that there was a "first flick" that gave rise to the universe.

This is what I like about Protestants. They read the Bible, see that it's all madness, that it's full of absurdities—from incest to God ordering the killing of babies and splitting pregnant women in half, from a flying Jew sitting on clouds to a talking donkey—but they say, "Okay, my religion is madness, and that's just the way it is, and I'll follow it anyway!"

Now Catholics are ashamed of their own holy book.

>>17975664 (OP)
Context:
They just suffered the Babylonian defeat, which destroyed the Temple and enslaved the Israelites

They were being mocked that if God was so powerful, why would they be destroyed
This is God's answer

God did not "create" evil
He allowed it to happen because the Israelites continued to sin. He warned them blatantly that if they were to continue their ways, he would lift his protection and their infants "would be smashed against the walls."

Which is exactly what happened

>>17975664 (OP)
>disaster (evil, rah in Hebrew);
Rah means more like "misfortune". Not ontological evil.

"Evil" can be used to just mean harm.
>I will do a great evil upon you.

>>17975664 (OP)
>first flick
The first flick is arbitrary. Like calling blue "azul". But once you define blue as "azul", you can start building your logic. The Bible is a dictionary.

>>17975726
>God smiling to himself as he watches you step on a nail he put there just for you.

>>17975747
By definition, that is not God. You are just making up your own language.

>>17975803
>arguing from semantics instead of evidence
God created you without a brain

>>17975664 (OP)
Do you ever see phrases on tiktok like
"how to say you're dating a white guy without saying you're dating a white guy"?

how do you read sentences like that?
aren't they illogical?

>>17975664 (OP)
>Isaiah 45:7
>this thread again
That's talking about natural evil, not moral evil. Posting source.

>>17975664 (OP)
Christians agree you cant definitively prove God but it has nothing to do with "philosophies of morality" like you say.

Think about it. If God did exist in His entirety, and you could reveal his existence in any way to the universe, then it would be impossible to not immediately bend your knee in submission to that magnanimity.
What we know is that we have free will to chose God or not, and if He could be proven, that free will would be moot.

>>17975664 (OP)

[...]God sent prophets so as to avoid consigning the Jews to punishment, intending to frighten them in word, so as not to punish them in deed.… Observing this and wishing to undermine the reform that was the result of such a threat, the devil sent down false prophets, and in contradiction of the prophets’ threats of captivity, servitude and famine, false prophets preached the opposite—peace, prosperity and enjoyment of countless good things. Hence, the genuine prophets also mocked the false by saying, “Peace, peace—and where is peace?” This every scholar knows, that everything happened just as the prophets had foretold against the false prophets, who were undermining the people’s zeal. So when they undermined the people in this way and corrupted them, God said through the prophets, “I, God, am making peace and creating evils.” What sort of evils? Those mentioned—captivity, servitude and the like. Not fornication, licentiousness, avarice and anything else like that.… Do not let the false prophets undermine you; God can give you peace and consign you to captivity, which is the meaning of “making peace and creating evils.” For you to learn that this is true, let us make a precise examination of the individual expressions. After saying before, “I am the one who brought light and darkness into being,” he then went on to say, “making peace and creating evils.” He cited two opposites first, and two opposites after that, for you to learn that he is referring not to fornication but to calamities. I mean, what is set as the opposite of peace? Clearly captivity, not licentiousness or fornication or avarice. So just as he cited two opposites first, so too in this case; the opposite of peace is not fornication, or adultery, or licentiousness or the other vices, but captivity and servitude. - "Homilies on Isaiah 45.6–7"

>>17975721
7I form the light and create darkness,
I bring peace (well, shalom) and bring disaster (evil, rah in Hebrew);
I, the Lord, do all these things.
WHY CHRISKEK LIKE THIS? YOU ARE SUBHUMAN TIME TO ACCEPT THE TRUTH.

>>17976483
>it would be impossible to not immediately bend your knee in submission to that magnanimity
The adversary didn't do that, the snake didn't do that, eve didn't do that, and they all had personally interacted with god and known his power.

>>17975664 (OP)
>>17976485

For since we are accustomed to use the word evil to speak of calamities, and not only of thefts and adulteries, so the prophet allows this usage. On this basis the prophet can say, “There is no evil in the city that the Lord has not done.” This too, by means of Isaiah, God has made clear, when he said, “I am God who makes peace and creates evil,” again naming calamities evils. This evil also Christ hints at, thus saying to the disciples, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” that is to say, the affliction, the misery. It is manifest then on all sides that he here calls punishment an evil, even as we commonly do, affirming at the same time that God brings these on us. This affords us the greatest view of his providence. For the physician is not only to be commended when he leads forth the patient into gardens and meadows, nor even into baths and pools of water, nor yet when he sets before him a well-furnished table, but when he orders him to remain without food, when he oppresses him with hunger and lays him low with thirst, confines him to his bed, making his house a prison, depriving him of the very light and shadowing his room on all sides with curtains. When he cuts, and when he cauterizes and when he brings his bitter medicines, he is equally a physician. - "Concerning the Power of Demons 1.5"

>>17976485
do you read the fucking phrase op post. Your god creat evil you dumbsubhuman. Stop using the pagan philosophy of chad pagan philiosopher of greek.

>>17976488
no one care your faggot priest who don't know shit about science sayTome shit.

>>17976488
your god creat evil if not your god is not real god your god is like pagan gods.

>>17976488
IT NOT YOUR FUCKING PHYSICIAN IF YOU DON'T KNOW HIM YOU GO TO HELL FOREVER SUBHUMAN CHRISTKEK.

>>17976488
>"They that are well need no physician but rather those who are sick" [Matt. 9:12]. Christ reveals this to a crowd with respect to his [reason for] coming to earth. If, as he says, he confronted sin for the sake of those who are weak, what of our forefathers, our ancestors-were they not likewise diseased and weakened by sin? Those who are whole [he says] need no physician. He came [he says] not to call the righteous but sinners, as Paul also claims when he says, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of which I am one of the greatest" [1 Tim. 1.5].
>If this is true, that those who have gone astray are called, and those who are diseased are healed, while the unrighteous [are] called and the righteous [are] not - then it follows that the one who is neither called nor in need of healing among the Christians would be a righteous man who had not gone astray. That is: he who needs no healing [is precisely] the man who turns his back on the word of faith; and the more he turns away from it the more righteous and whole he is and the less he goes astray.
Anonymous philosopher (Macarius Magnes, Apocriticus 4.10)

>>17976487
Adam and Eve only felt His presence, and tried to hide from Him after their defiance - then when He confronted them they were forced to obey and be cast to Earth.

Satan is constantly kow-towing to God's authority literally all throughout the Bible - he is rebellious but ultimately powerless compared to the creator. We are only mortals, so if we caught a glimpse of the infinite being that is "God" we would naturally have to submit. It's game over at that point. Imagine a character in a story trying to comprehend the extra-dimensional guy who authored the book theyre in.

>>17976511
>Adam and Eve only felt His presence
No, god and adam had conversations with each other, god was present and interacted directly, they wouldn't try to hide if god was only a feeling that came from inside them rather than a person that existed external to them.

>he is rebellious
Which you just said would not be possible.

>if we caught a glimpse of the infinite being that is "God" we would naturally have to submit.
You have already submitted and you didn't even glimpse him, you just had some jew tell you about his book, so you yourself don't even necessitate some direct omnipotent presence to be a cowtowing cuck to the mere idea.

>>17976520
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” Gen3:8
They never see him, and by the time they are talking to him, they are already in submission.

>Which you just said would not be possible.
For humans yeah.

>you dont even necessitate
Which is exactly the point, because we live in a world with free will, which allows us to seek or reject him according to our level of faith. Not a world where God is emperically evident and belief is default.

>>17976545
They had contact with him before that, before they defied him.
>The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

>For humans yeah.
So why are humans the only ones he doesn't like enough to micromanage?

>because we live in a world with free will
No, we live in a world where the transgressor has free will to victimize while the victims are just props in their transgressions, if the murder victims were all freely murdered of their own free will, it wouldn't be considered sinful, it would be helpful.

>>17975664 (OP)
Why are there so many beetle basedjaks

>>17976562
Do you think adam disobeyed in that instant? Or, in his heart, did he truly submit to God's request? I'd say so, in that moment he had no intention to do anything but submit to God. Only later, after God stepped away did he betray Him, falling to temptation.

>micromanage
He explicitly doesnt micromanage.

>existence of evil
Evil is abhorrent but it's existence does not discredit any of my points. As a species we prefer good over evil. This is still neither "proof" nor "disproof" of God, but I do consider our preference for good to be congruent with God.

>>17976623
He disobeyed knowing he was real and knowing his power.

>He explicitly doesnt micromanage.
You already admitted that he explicitly micromanages everything in nature besides free will.

>>17976630
But outside of God's presence innit?
>You already admitted that he explicitly micromanages everything in nature besides free will.
Point to it then. I know I havent said that.

Free will existing does not mean everything else besides free will is controlled, that's silly. Why do you want the universe to be so intentional?

>>17976648
No, god is omnipresent.

>>17976545
>For humans yeah.

So why are atoms so well controlled?

>>17976671
Presence also doesnt imply direct action.

>for humans yeah
Was me making a distinction between humans and satan for being rebellious despite fully knowing God (and my claim was humans wouldnt be able to).

Atoms simply follow their innate behavior. They were perhaps fine-tuned in the beginning, thats all. God probably doesnt directly control atom decay in the moment for example.

>>17975664 (OP)
Past a point one does kinda have to ask what the fuck is the point of all this??
Like you are grown ass man making never before seen wojack cartoons and writing paragraphs to poke logical holes in the religious belief of others; why?
Why is this a worthwhile use of your time??
And don’t say you just love going after logical inconsistencies in general. If your an atheist odds are your a leftist and as such don’t spend the same time poking holes in the logical inconsistencies of gender ideology; even if you ARENT on the left I very much doubt when you se a dude getting his cock sucked in his car in the parking lot of a Buffalo Wild Wings you go over knock on the windows and kindly let the young couple know that neither of them “exist” in the traditional sense and rather then actual transcendent connection all that’s compelling to show affection to one and other is a biological infact chemical drive to breed which neither of them have control over or “consent” to any meaningful way as “they” fundamentally don’t exist as they have no free will.
There are a million million illusions people buy into from the existence of their ego to love every day; many of which are much more deeply held then belief in God and just as destructive.
Do you not se people killing one and other over romantic feelings??
So why fucking bother with this?
Why care when no amount of argument is going to make every human being on earth into the dispassionate, detached Buddhist monk like rationalist we would all have to be if we were going to be consistent with our skepticism??
Why not START by making yourself that detached dispassionate rationalist you so clearly feel all people have a duty to become.
You want to know a great first step to that???
Stop shitting up the catalog with shitty rage bait threads and go meditate or something.

>>17976718
appeal to triviality fallacy

>>17976727
He's right though.
>He's just calling my arguments trivial becau
But he's right. It's pointless and spending your time that way is embarrassing.

>>17976746
>nuh huh
appeal to triviality is a fallacy thus he's not right, sorry sis, better luck next time.

>>17976749
Hitler getting kicked out of art school would have been a slippery slope to becoming the nazi leader. And yet, it happened.

My doctor said to not smoke, and whatdya know, thats an appeal to authority, but he's right.
Sometimes "fallacies" are still part of true statements anon.

>>17976752
>Sometimes "fallacies" are still part of true statements anon.
No, low IQ zoomer, they are not. Thanks for proving you are literally retarded and don't understand that same sentences can be or not be a fallacy depending on the context of the debate.

Literal NPC retard lmao.

What's the problem if God created "evil"? Much like a parent can hug you or slap you, God can bless you or get you split in half by barbarians. Who are you to decide what God should or shouldn't do?

First of all, God creates disaster for the greater good of his kingdom.
Also, Plato actually justifies God, hence the Supreme Good concept.