If there is a god is he evil?

[mentalgymnast]

I mean, one could be forgiven for giving God a pass if a toddler takes the inevitable tumble. You know, scrapes their knee. But, what kind of mind does it take to design fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva? Or how about aquagenic urticaria? You see there are actual gradations of design features in the programming that require a real bastard of a mind in order for it to be designed, developed, and implemented.

So. You tell me.

Did God create bone cancer?

- Doc

The conditions by which bone cancer can afflict and torment mankind would have been overseen/known by God. Those same conditions...as a result of the evolutionary processes...have resulted in all of the other maladies that afflict and torment mankind.

Is there any other option, other than to say God doesn’t exist?

Do you think God could have set in motion evolutionary processes that would have been completely free of maladies that afflict and torment mankind? Would that even be possible? The fact is, our friends in the animal kingdom seem to have inherited many of those same maladies that affect us. Seems to me that this may demonstrate the fact that gene mutation and the like is part and parcel of the natural world.

How would a world free of any abnormalities look? Kind of paradisiacal I would guess. But then one might ask, what would be the purpose in a perfect life in a perfect world?

Don’t come back with the old trope that God can somehow make the impossible possible. Making a square from a circle and that sort of BS.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

But then one might ask, what would be the purpose in a perfect life in a perfect world?

What? I mean, isn't that what you hope for in the end? To eventually have a perfect life in a perfect world?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Considering babies who are born and die get a pass, or mentally handicapable types get a free pass because they checked the ‘get a body’ box I’m starting to think that God really, really wanted to try out that bone cancer feature. Like. Eye parasites aren’t a glitch, they’re code meant to run in the matrix.

- Doc

[Gadianton]

If the police officers were superhuman aliens like Star Trek's Q, then answers 5 and 9 wouldn't be so absurd.

I'll admit the "officer" analogy assumes God with certain responsibilities that maybe he doesn't have, but "Q" has built-in aloofness, given he's a fellow evolved life form with no jurisdiction over humans. We don't expect Q to step in not primarily because he's 150 steps ahead, but because it's not his business. The Enterprise likewise has their prime directive. But had the Enterprise concocted these other worlds in a lab, it feels like the cop analogy begins to fit.

My problem with Officer 5 is that it's a cake-and-eat-too out. One contribution from Christian theologians is that God, to be God, isn't just a cause, but is personable. So, I can nearly buy into some kind of pantheism or alternative weird-ass depth to reality where something describable in some way as intelligence is ultimately behind everything, and that if we understood this massive depth, we would see everything differently. Well, would such a force be personable enough to be "God"? And if pain and suffering don't mean anything when we come to understand this massive depth, then why would moral norms and commandments stay meaningful, and worse, have eternal implications? It seems to me that if God is personable enough to share norms he's saddled humans with, and expects humans to live by, that he can't just play the "oh, if you knew what I knew card" so easily.

My problem with officer 9 is similar. Granting this is all just a spec in the grand scheme, and the glory of the next world incinerates the pain of this one as a forest fire consumes a dry leaf, then why does what we do matter so much to our future in the eternal realm? Just as pain is fleeting, so is sin, and so are horrible crimes.

Nobody is going to say that little kids occasionally scraping their knees proves that there is no good God. That level of evil seems pretty bad at the time to the children involved but adults know good things in the world that far outweigh the scraped knees. It doesn't seem too hard to suppose that maybe a universe that allows some scraped knees could really be a lot better than one that sacrifices other possibilities in order to ensure that scraped knees never happen

Right, I think the argument in the realm of the evidential problem of evil, is the mounting of accidental or meaningless evil. There's no firm line in the sand. Some people can let a fawn die in a forest fire without blinking, some can let a thousand or a million die.

[Moksha]

What if He/She/It is a celestial mechanics kind of guy? An unmoved mover who lets that which was set in motion sort itself out?

That hands-off approach could explain both the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Trump.

[dastardly stem]

I mean, one could be forgiven for giving God a pass if a toddler takes the inevitable tumble. You know, scrapes their knee. But, what kind of mind does it take to design fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva? Or how about aquagenic urticaria? You see there are actual gradations of design features in the programming that require a real bastard of a mind in order for it to be designed, developed, and implemented.

So. You tell me.

Did God create bone cancer?

- Doc

This is very on point, Doc. I struggle with the theodicy of God needs bad things to randomly hit people because he needs those people to suffer to get stronger and better...or something. Particularly when it appears it has God sacrificing people to others benefit from the pain and difficulty that witness. The argument comes along and the believer is forced to say something along the lines of "well, logically the pain and suffering of people can't really disprove God because it's possible God has a higher purpose for sufferers then we know". Somehow whenever a conversation comes up to discuss the merits of believing in God the believer tends to view it in terms of the non-believer taking on the burden of disproving God, all because there's some sort of majority positioning going on. Nah the post hoc apologetic response isn't doing much more than making excuses.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I mean, one could be forgiven for giving God a pass if a toddler takes the inevitable tumble. You know, scrapes their knee. But, what kind of mind does it take to design fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva? Or how about aquagenic urticaria? You see there are actual gradations of design features in the programming that require a real bastard of a mind in order for it to be designed, developed, and implemented.

So. You tell me.

Did God create bone cancer?

- Doc

This is very on point, Doc. I struggle with the theodicy of God needs bad things to randomly hit people because he needs those people to suffer to get stronger and better...or something. Particularly when it appears it has God sacrificing people to others benefit from the pain and difficulty that witness. The argument comes along and the believer is forced to say something along the lines of "well, logically the pain and suffering of people can't really disprove God because it's possible God has a higher purpose for sufferers then we know". Somehow whenever a conversation comes up to discuss the merits of believing in God the believer tends to view it in terms of the non-believer taking on the burden of disproving God, all because there's some sort of majority positioning going on. Nah the post hoc apologetic response isn't doing much more than making excuses.

Yeah, that doesn't work for me, either. The amount of very particular suffering designed, implemented, and perpetuated - if you believe a god is behind all of this - took a keen mind. I don't know if anything is 'evil' any more, but what life is, what I can see, if it was by design, can only be described as totally brutal with no respect to individual and kin. And I'm talking about all life forms, not just human. Rape, murder, slaughter, suffering, and fear are in reality the natural order of things, again, not just in the human realm of experiences.

So, for me, if there is a god who designed this reality it was done with intent, and it's damned awful. There's no ideological consistency if you want to say God is a God of Love because the evidence shows a god elbow deep in blood, wrath, torture, predation, and brutality. I wouldn't create eye parasite and bone cancer, but that's just me.

- Doc

[mentalgymnast]

*dup

[mentalgymnast]

...what life is, what I can see, if it was by design, can only be described as totally brutal with no respect to individual and kin. And I'm talking about all life forms, not just human. Rape, murder, slaughter, suffering, and fear are in reality the natural order of things, again, not just in the human realm of experiences.
- Doc

And on the flip side we have the soft feel, smell, and beauty of a velvet rose. The smile of a beautiful baby. The beautiful natural wonders of nature. The love of a beautiful family. Etc.

Beauty. Chance?

Or purpose?

If purpose...then would we not then have to consider that bone cancer and other maladies, passed to us through the same natural evolutionary mechanisms that gave us roses and smiling babies, also has purpose? The natural world is filled with beauty while at the same time being filled with maladies that afflict and torment mankind.

I suppose it comes down to whether or not we are open to the idea of there being an opposition in ALL things. And that opposition has purpose...besides pain. That is a difficult proposal to accept, granted.

Regards,
MG

[Lem]

I mean, one could be forgiven for giving God a pass if a toddler takes the inevitable tumble. You know, scrapes their knee. But, what kind of mind does it take to design fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva? Or how about aquagenic urticaria? You see there are actual gradations of design features in the programming that require a real bastard of a mind in order for it to be designed, developed, and implemented.

So. You tell me.

Did God create bone cancer?

- Doc

This is very on point, Doc. I struggle with the theodicy of God needs bad things to randomly hit people because he needs those people to suffer to get stronger and better...or something. Particularly when it appears it has God sacrificing people to others benefit from the pain and difficulty that witness. The argument comes along and the believer is forced to say something along the lines of "well, logically the pain and suffering of people can't really disprove God because it's possible God has a higher purpose for sufferers then we know". Somehow whenever a conversation comes up to discuss the merits of believing in God the believer tends to view it in terms of the non-believer taking on the burden of disproving God, all because there's some sort of majority positioning going on. Nah the post hoc apologetic response isn't doing much more than making excuses.

Especially when the post hoc response is the same regardless of good or bad happening... two missionaries survived an explosion, they were miraculously saved because they were doing god's work, therefore god exists. Or, a missionary dies in an accident, very quietly people whisper they were taken to heaven because god was pleased with their work, therefore god exists. This was an actual example a few years back, and I always felt terrible for the mother of the missionary not miraculously saved. She had to hear, over and over, how the other two missionaries were saved by god because of their righteousness, while her son died.... because of his righteousness? It is nothing more than after the fact justification of a belief where the justification outweighs any rational assessment of the situation. 'God is good' is an utterly meaningless banality in this context.