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Ancient wisdom (lemmy.world)
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  1. Evil is caused by humans
  2. If we were incapable of evil we would be incapable of free thought and reasoning and goodness
  3. Heaven and hell will settle the balance and the holy books direct humanity to goodness
  4. This argument has been so thoroughly debunked it's pure and simple ignorance to espouse it without at least addressing the above points
[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago
  1. God created humans. Why didn't he create us without any evil?

  2. Why? God created the concepts of evil and free thought. He could have made free thought possible without evil. Why did he choose not to? Or is there some higher truth of good and evil, which god is bound to?

  3. What?

  4. Those points make unfounded assumptions about the nature of good and evil. That's literally the point of the argument. You say "things have to be this way, it can't work otherwise", but god made all those rules, right?

Free thought is possible without evil. Lots of people just choose to be evil and greedy and violent. Lots of people also choose to support one another and build societies, or advance scientifically, or study ecology, or advocate for human rights

Evil will be punished by hell and goodness and patience will be rewarded, the balance will be settled by a divine observer

Either god exists and we should play by his rules and act in an objective morality (feed the poor don't be greedy golden rule etc) or he doesn't exist and the world is this way because it is

Pain makes us sad, beauty makes us happy. It's an objective undeniable truth that increasing happiness and minimizing pain for others is a good and moral act, why imagine anything different?

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Sorry, I think I'm not understanding your point correctly. I agree that we should try to act morally, but that isn't related to the argument of the post.

Very concretely: Your god created everything, including the very concept of evil. Since he is all-powerful, he must be able to create the exact same world, but without evil. We agree so far, right?

So why isn't the logical conclusion that he chose to create evil?

Was the invention of electricity evil because it created the electric chair or was it good because it created home heating? God created free will, we chose to do evil with it. Being prescient he would have known what we would choose to do with it and still created us anyway, allowing both good and evil to happen. Can we agree on that part?

Tell me how evil was his creation and not ours. Give me an example of such a thing

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Being prescient he would have known what we would choose to do with it and still created us anyway, allowing both good and evil to happen. Can we agree on that part?

Yes, we can agree on that! Since your god is all-mighty, he specifically chose to create us so we'd create the electric chair. He could have created us slightly differently so we'd still create home heating without creating the electric chair, but he chose to make us do both.

So god created all evil. After all, he could have created us without the capacity for evil. Had he not created the concept of evil, we wouldn't even have the option.

Tell me how evil was his creation and not ours. Give me an example of such a thing

God created us and gave us the capacity to do evil. He could have created us without the capacity to do evil (since he's all-mighty). Literally everything is his creation, is it not?

[-] passiveaggressivesonar@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

Do you believe humanity is all evil with no redeeming qualities? If yes then I get why you would think that. If no, then he created us for BOTH the good and the bad

Anyone can choose to stop doing evil. If they have free will then it's a choice they made, not god. Can we agree on that?

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

No, I don't think that humanity is all evil. But I feel like you're dodging the central question I'm asking, because you keep bringing up that we can also do good.

God created good and evil, and he created us with the capacity to do good and evil, while he had the explicit knowledge that we'd do evil. He could have also chosen to only create good, and to create us with the capacity to only do good. Why did he create both good and evil, instead of only good?

Initially you stated that good and evil are necessary for free will, but you immediately backtracked on that. Since then you keep repeating that humans do evil, but that's not relevant to what I'm asking. Please try not to use any allegories or to reframe my question. Just try to answer: "God gave us the capacity to do evil, because..."

[-] passiveaggressivesonar@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

God gave us the capacity to do evil because he gave us free will. Giving free will meant doing evil is inevitable and anything different wouldn't be free will

He created humans with the capacity to do evil, therefore he created evil. I understand the central point, I'm disputing your belief that it's possible to have free will and never do evil

Can't really represent this point without an allegory but are social insects (ants, bees, wasps, termites etc) represent always doing good? A river? Stellar fusion?

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Oh, I thought you backtracked that immediately. So that means your god isn't actually all-powerful, right? There exists some higher concept of good and evil to which he is bound, which he cannot violate?

Who made that concept? Why is god able to do anything except create free will without evil? He created the concept of free will, why can't he create it differently?

this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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