The Problem of Evil

[kahljorn]

if evil did not exist, then we simply would not need sins to protect ourselves. We could live in a utopia so to speak.

yea but a utopia? even in a utopia you're going to have to eat and drink, have rent or whatever a utopia needs to work. You'll be exposed to "suffering", regardless. Is suffering evil? If not, what about the acts that are performed through it's influence?
It almost sounds like a definition of heaven or the paradise in the bible before we "Fell".

[kahljorn]

Animals sometimes play with their food. Cats do. sometimes they play with things that aren't even their food just to play...
Some people kill for survival. Wars, or even if they are poor they might rob a person. everything you do will put someone or something at a loss, it's unavoidable. you can't build a bridge without stones from a quarry am i right?

the reason why some systems have more than one god are for reasons such as this. some people believe the ultimate god may be omnipotent but isn't benevolent. the benevolent god is a lesser god.
Also, like i said, what if gods form of "Good" is something different than just making sure people don't die? What's so evil about that if it's a part of life? The only reason it seems like an important piece of the puzzle is because humans are self-interested and don't want anything bad done to them, thus they think gods interest is the same as theirs. but really why would god care, we're insignificant. but we want to feel significant, aye there's the rub lol
Maybe if evil didn't exist, then life itself couldn't exist. What would we eat? We couldn't eat without making something suffer. have you ever heard the phrase, "God created karma and then he retired," it means god created a world that is self-sustaining, functional and progressive. anyway, i guess all that's besides the point if omnipotents really means he can make anything happen ever.
And if we were nomads or foragers (living freely off the land), we'd think evil is something else like bad rains or tigers or something.

i actually wrote a paper along these lines ;o including a rationalization of how god could be good while avoiding the problem of evil. that last thing was a small Piece of THE SPIE.
my paper focused on what omnipotence means, logically.

but in the end i kind of had the same solution in that i dont think god is benevolent in the way people think. i still had a SORTA SORTA similar tract but it wasn't the same type of benevolence.

[kahljorn]

I mean obviously god isn't benevolent in the way most people think if he's benevolent at all. Just read the old testament. Killing off the entire human race, kicking adam and eve out of paradise. his dicking is endless.

[MattJack]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

Animals sometimes play with their food. Cats do. sometimes they play with things that aren't even their food just to play...
Some people kill for survival. Wars, or even if they are poor they might rob a person. everything you do will put someone or something at a loss, it's unavoidable. you can't build a bridge without stones from a quarry am i right?

the reason why some systems have more than one god are for reasons such as this. some people believe the ultimate god may be omnipotent but isn't benevolent. the benevolent god is a lesser god.
Also, like i said, what if gods form of "Good" is something different than just making sure people don't die? What's so evil about that if it's a part of life? The only reason it seems like an important piece of the puzzle is because humans are self-interested and don't want anything bad done to them, thus they think gods interest is the same as theirs. but really why would god care, we're insignificant. but we want to feel significant, aye there's the rub lol
Maybe if evil didn't exist, then life itself couldn't exist. What would we eat? We couldn't eat without making something suffer. have you ever heard the phrase, "God created karma and then he retired," it means god created a world that is self-sustaining, functional and progressive. anyway, i guess all that's besides the point if omnipotents really means he can make anything happen ever.
And if we were nomads or foragers (living freely off the land), we'd think evil is something else like bad rains or tigers or something.

i actually wrote a paper along these lines ;o including a rationalization of how god could be good while avoiding the problem of evil. that last thing was a small Piece of THE SPIE.
my paper focused on what omnipotence means, logically.

but in the end i kind of had the same solution in that i dont think god is benevolent in the way people think. i still had a SORTA SORTA similar tract but it wasn't the same type of benevolence.

Scientists figured out why cats play with their food. They say it's because they are complete badasses.

I think we as humans could most def prevent a lot of wars if we eliminated the human greed factor and adopted in its place a tolerance/understanding factor. Once again, man falls victim to evil through greed and intolerance.

I don't think dying is evil at all, just a piece that completes your life cycle so to speak. I think dying untimely because you got a knife in the back due to some asshole that wanted your land, is evil. Death in itself is not evil, rather just the end of a cycle.

I think it is perfectly fine and a very human quality to fear death. What creature doesn't want to live besides that emo kid in your high school that just broke up with his g/f? Some of it probably does have to do with one's ego though, which I feel is acceptable.

As far as food, God could provide that, no? Well even if he decided not to, men would have a underlying moral code to make sure everyone has enough. It would basically be a Socialist's paradise(which btw that isn't my politics, don't get it twisted) in the fact that everyone would be equal. Man would understand this and adhere to it without a second thought.

[Preechr]

...nevermind... you two fags deserve one another...

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by Preechr

...nevermind... you two fags deserve one another...

...mmm... Yeah....

[Preechr]

www.dictionary.com

...look up philosophy, and see if you see anything that might lead you to believe it has anything to do with something other than human nature...


...SNORE...

[kahljorn]

that's alright preechr ive read your political idealogy in the works of ann coulter.

[kahljorn]

zing bitch zing

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

zing bitch zing

FUCKYOUBITCH

Stay tuned.

Fortunately for you I'm old and I need my sleep.

Within the next few days, you might just see something of interest up in here, and a few days after that, you might also see something else, unlike the last several months.

YOU HAVE HAD A FINGER POINTED AT YOU

[kahljorn]

whatever ann coulter

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

whatever ann coulter

Preechr may not reply because his or her status is currently set to Snoring Loudly

[kahljorn]

alright dude.
what are you going to post about?

is it about good and evil?
because ive never heard you talk about anything philosophic before. Only political/economic.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

alright dude.
what are you going to post about?

Preechr may not reply because his or her status is currently set to Snoring in a Drunken Stupor

[Preechr]

...though everything that has ever been subject to philosophical debate has been political and/or economic in nature....

[kahljorn]

that's not true.

the only way it could be true you might as well say everything that has ever been subject to philosophical debate has been human nature

[kahljorn]

yea maybe but if i say anything else preechr will go I SENT YOU THAT BOOK or something

anyway making an argument that god isnt benevolent is pretty easy. like i said anybody can look in the bible and find god not being benevolent and being uninterested in human life or human perfection.

you should read chapter three of genesis though since it deals with how god feels about man achieving "Perfection".

[kahljorn]

more faggot talk, just like ann coulter

what was that mmm yeah thing preechr you should stop thinking of young men having sex together that's disgusting.

[kahljorn]

you mean metaphysical?
because that's not economic or political in nature.

like i said THE ONLY WAY you could say that is if that so you're only refuting your own argument sassy pants.

[kahljorn]

i discussed evil in terms of something other than human. or at least laid the path to talk about it.

[MattJack]

It's fine, he can be cool all he wants. He posts WAY more than me in this forum, so Imma fag up all of his threads as well . Just let the libertarian, wait, he changed flavors already, I mean the greenindirepublicrat talk to himself.

[kahljorn]

wanting a benevolent god is also self-interested for a couple of reasons:
"Oh man gods good and he loves us specifically so hes gonna hook us up with a cool life yo"
"If we pray to god he will bless us"
"god has a plan for the universe"
"Our life has meaning"

and also because without a benevolent god is undermines our whole conception of striving to be good. When we call something god we are basically saying, "These are our ideals". Without god, to some people, there are no ideals.

stuff like that. Without a god most of those become meaningless, as far as they are based on god.

[Gabby GaGa]

Matt:

Why would God need to even create some "equalibrium?" He's God, he doesn't need an excuse to why he has created good. He doesn't have to answer to anyone does he? Why a counterpart? We do not need to have an counterpart of everything to know two sides of something. Further, many things do not have any counterparts. What is the
counterpart of chalk? We know perfectly what chalk is without knowing what its counterpart is.

Pepto Bismal.
Just kidding.
The only reason you know what chalk is
is because you've been told.
(thats not a zing. Let me explain)
We only know what god is, or what his standards are,
because we've been told.

So yes, chalk (or god) could exist,
but only because we have a notion of him.
An idea or notion is created out of collective experiances,
one of which is comparison. (good and evil)

this is all reptitive on my part, of course.
Nietzche already proved that God and human morality are dependent on each other.

I MEAN YOUR ENTIRE DICSUCSION HERE WAS COMPLETELY COVERED IN AN E-MAIL I RECEIVED FROM MY STEP-MOM JESUS CHRIST

You step mom is jesus christ. holy shit.
If she covered everything,
why don't you ENLIGHTEN us. Open our poor stupid minds.

Once again, man falls victim to evil through greed and intolerance.

Please refer to Adamsite.

when you're a child you try to fly though, and then you learn you can't. That's not so
much a matter of choosing as it is biology, though, but i guess that's your point.

Not exactly. Well, in a way.
That child is expressing either pure stupidity, or a misconception.
Stupid people I can feel sorry for, Like Ed Gein. They're like drug addicts,
and just need understanding, and hopefully treatment, as Kahl pointed out.
My second point was misconception. Misconception can fall into both the catagories of
enviroment and mental disease.
Enviroment is a template that pre-designates a persons so-called "free will"
that enviroment will permanently engrave a persons mind to function in a certain way.
Mental disease is the next catagory. This one is more difficult, because it's sometimes
impossible to draw the line between misconception and and mental disease. Yes, this is more a
question of biology.
So, is the deviant person evil because of misconception, which is really a skewed vision
of a logical or moral idea, or is he evil because of a biological (chemical or nurological)
flaw?
If bilogical, then that does indeed mean that some people are predestined to commiting evil acts.
If the subject has a misconcieved idea, then that means a skewed view was introduced somewhere
(family, community, or school), in which case fault lies with the society.
For all others, those who's upbringing was normal, and the person never experianced any trauma,
those people are plain evil. They probably commit their acts out of boredom,
because they always had a "straight-line" life. No ups or downs.
Oh yeah, to answer your question,
about why god allows suffering and illness, etc.
Because we need to go through the suffering in order to learn.

[kahljorn]

"So yes, chalk (or god) could exist,
but only because we have a notion of him.
An idea or notion is created out of collective experiances,
one of which is comparison. (good and evil)"

I see what you're saying basically what i said but the entire point of god is that he exists before our experiences.

what is evil about killing out of boredom? I'm just curious because I've been asking what evil was because you know I'm just wondering...

Nietzsche I don't think actually PROVED anything about god.

[kahljorn]

i was going to start talking about existentialism and how "Choice" and "Freedom" aren't a solice but now i feel dirty and ashamed ;(