When I was a little kid, I took what I was told at face value and didn’t question it.
Magical thinking is normal for little kids. By about age 7 you’re supposed to have grown out of that shit though - like it’s normal to still enjoy the concept of magic, but there comes a point when you should have a pretty intuitive understanding that it’s fiction.
For some reason we give religion a pass.
Some old dude in a dress raving about how ghosts built the pyramids is instantly recognized as crazy; but some old dude raving about how the chief master ghost shat out our entire universe in a week is… somehow worthy of respect?
So, my religion is no religion: I believe what can be tested and verified.
The most concise test to disprove the notion of God is one of simple logic: the Epicurean paradox, which recognizes the mythology of God being composed of three core pillars: that he is 100% good (complete absence of evil), 100% powerful (his will is our reality), and 100% omniscient (he knows everything about everything)… but despite those three pillars, it takes no time at all to recognize evil behavior all around us, and for evil to be able to exist in our reality, one of those pillars must always fall.
He either doesn’t know evil is happening in his universe, is powerless to stop it, or is okay with it.
Every single time a religious person attempts to address the Epicurean paradox, the just shuffle the pillars to fill in the gap left open by the missing third (feel free to take that as a challenge if you think you’ve got the answer).
Anyway, it became clear that at the very least, my religion wasn’t being honest about the nature of its own god, and that realization was the final nail in the coffin for me.
I think for some people the scale of God simply doesn’t compute, which is why old man with big beard image persists. Look at the size of our galaxy, and the size of the universe as a whole. If any being was the creator of such a vast and complex universe as ours, that being would be to us like we are to a “Hello world” script.
The analogy is flawed, but that is what we are saying if we believe in a being capable of creating our universe, defining its laws and bending them to create us. We could not truly begin to comprehend such a being, and largely we are left to our own. However, if you believe, then this being does care about us in some way. And it has shown us this through inspiring humans to share its path for our improvement.
That is the reason I believe in the teachings of the Christ. The path of loving your enemies, of caring for everyone as one would your own family, forgiveness, that is the path to a better world, revealed to us through a man and his story. I am unable to fully live up to such ideals, but like Data says, the struggle yields its own rewards. Those who take such ideas to heart are worthy in the eyes of the creator, because if all people were such, there would be little suffering in our world. We have the means to reduce our suffering, but we choose not to. God could, remove it for us, but then we will not become the free and good beings we are meant to be.
You don’t need God to have such ideals as the Christ demonstrated, but I find such ideas so much better than any of the alternatives, that I suspect they have divine origin. And even if they don’t, if I follow them, then I will contribute to making the world better regardless. God could take away my struggle and suffering, but that would leave me still flawed and unable to improve, and so it would be for all humanity as well.
(feel free to take that as a challenge if you think you’ve got the answer).
Muslim here and sure (I’ve wanted to try this for a while now): The criteria for the first pillar are arbitrary. What’s being proposed is that a good creator wouldn’t allow their creation to suffer, or—taking it a step further—wouldn’t create a world where suffering is even possible. However, that would require human (or, really, lite in general) not to exist; give humans free will and suffering will happen. You could argue then that the act of creating humans was evil, which would be logically consistent, and in that case my answer is: I’ll drop (your conception of) the first pillar. God knows about suffering and is capable of stopping it but tolerates it for one purpose or another.
Full disclosure, I have no idea if the Muslim concept of god applies to the Epicurean paradox. I’m much more familiar with the Christian version which presents god as perfect in an absolute sense.
a good creator wouldn’t allow their creation to suffer, or—taking it a step further—wouldn’t create a world where suffering is even possible.
Yeah there’s a degree of obscurity - for the sake of this conversation I’d be okay with defining evil as deliberate suffering. Step on a Lego > hurts > not evil. Stick a knife in someone or like commit genocide > very clearly evil. Idk if the former is technically incompatible with the Epicurean paradox, but we have no shortage of actual extremes to choose from, so might as well focus on those.
create a world where suffering is even possible. However, that would require human (or, really, lite in general) not to exist; give humans free will and suffering will happen.
Under the current laws of our universe, yes, but those are what are being scrutinized. The question this prompts is: is god not capable of creating free will without evil?
my answer is: I’ll drop (your conception of) the first pillar. God knows about suffering and is capable of stopping it but tolerates it for one purpose or another.
Needing to drop a pillar to make god work is the point of the whole exercise: a god that’s aware of evil and has the power to stop it, but chooses not to, is himself some degree of evil.
I’m much more familiar with the Christian version which presents god as perfect in an absolute sense.
Islam does too, but with less emphasis on the idea of benevolence. Most relevantly, Islam states that life is a test by God and therefore suffering is an inherent part of it, which is kind of my framework here (though I don’t assume that in my argument below).
Step on a Lego > hurts > not evil. Stick a knife in someone or like commit genocide > very clearly evil.
My point is that that’s logically inconsistent. A genocide killing thousands of people and an earthquake or famine killing thousands of people both leave thousands of people dead. Hell, even letting people die at all is suffering. Back to our postulates, pillar 2 states “his will is our reality.” When you get down to it, the only kind of world that would not run afoul of the Epicurean paradox would be a no-scarcity paradise with only 100% happy thoughts, and at that point we’d be looking at robots (or I suppose angels, if there’s a material difference), not humans. Worse, when you get down to it in such a world people would either lose the ability to even conceive of evil, or be prevented from committing it by an external force. Imagine if at the mall you always had an angel making you return your shopping cart, now multiply that by ten thousand times. Essentially we’re looking at a world of lobotomized robots, which to me doesn’t sound all that appealing.
is god not capable of creating free will without evil?
It might be possible in some outlandish alternate universe, but restricting the discussion to things we can conceive of, evil is baked into the concept of free will. As I argued above, take away the capacity to commit evil and you remove almost the whole breadth of human emotion and activity, by definition running afoul of free will. Perhaps most importantly, though
a god that’s aware of evil and has the power to stop it, but chooses not to, is himself some degree of evil.
at the core of this is the assumption that suffering is ontologically evil. This is very egotistical, but it also betrays a fundamental instability in the whole thing: Without objective morality (which immediately follows from the lack of belief in a creator), how can there be good and evil? This application of the Epicurean paradox assumes that evil can exist independent of a higher authority able to determine good and evil, so it’s a case of circular reasoning more than anything else. The Epicurean paradox can only be used to reject complete benevolence (which, well yes), not complete goodness.
My point is that that’s logically inconsistent. A genocide killing thousands of people and an earthquake or famine killing thousands of people both leave thousands of people dead.
Disagree - intent is an important factor if we’re talking about will.
If you stub your toe on your coffee table, there’s no ill will coming from the table. If I approached you and whacked your toe with a mallet, there would be ill will coming from me. In those cases, the outcome is the same, but you’d be silly to be upset at the table; but very justified in being upset at me.
So, take something like thousands of deaths from an earthquake: in a godless universe, it’s a shitty situation, but not an evil one. There’s no intent: the universe has no will. Throw an omnipotent and omniscient controller into the mix and suddenly that earthquake isn’t something that just happened as a result of planetary physics; it’s something that was intentionally designed to happen.
…which kinda makes sense that you’d think of them as being the same, since through a theocratic lens they kind of are, it’s just that ones a genocide at the hands of men, and the other’s a genocide at the hands of god. Either way, both are very much evil.
When you get down to it, the only kind of world that would not run afoul of the Epicurean paradox would be a no-scarcity paradise with only 100% happy thoughts, and at that point we’d be looking at robots (or I suppose angels, if there’s a material difference), not humans.
Agreed, hence my disbelief.
Running out of time, posting on mobile on lunch. I’ll hit the rest after work.
When I was a little kid, I took what I was told at face value and didn’t question it.
Magical thinking is normal for little kids. By about age 7 you’re supposed to have grown out of that shit though - like it’s normal to still enjoy the concept of magic, but there comes a point when you should have a pretty intuitive understanding that it’s fiction.
For some reason we give religion a pass.
Some old dude in a dress raving about how ghosts built the pyramids is instantly recognized as crazy; but some old dude raving about how the chief master ghost shat out our entire universe in a week is… somehow worthy of respect?
So, my religion is no religion: I believe what can be tested and verified.
The most concise test to disprove the notion of God is one of simple logic: the Epicurean paradox, which recognizes the mythology of God being composed of three core pillars: that he is 100% good (complete absence of evil), 100% powerful (his will is our reality), and 100% omniscient (he knows everything about everything)… but despite those three pillars, it takes no time at all to recognize evil behavior all around us, and for evil to be able to exist in our reality, one of those pillars must always fall.
He either doesn’t know evil is happening in his universe, is powerless to stop it, or is okay with it.
Every single time a religious person attempts to address the Epicurean paradox, the just shuffle the pillars to fill in the gap left open by the missing third (feel free to take that as a challenge if you think you’ve got the answer).
Anyway, it became clear that at the very least, my religion wasn’t being honest about the nature of its own god, and that realization was the final nail in the coffin for me.
I think for some people the scale of God simply doesn’t compute, which is why old man with big beard image persists. Look at the size of our galaxy, and the size of the universe as a whole. If any being was the creator of such a vast and complex universe as ours, that being would be to us like we are to a “Hello world” script.
The analogy is flawed, but that is what we are saying if we believe in a being capable of creating our universe, defining its laws and bending them to create us. We could not truly begin to comprehend such a being, and largely we are left to our own. However, if you believe, then this being does care about us in some way. And it has shown us this through inspiring humans to share its path for our improvement.
That is the reason I believe in the teachings of the Christ. The path of loving your enemies, of caring for everyone as one would your own family, forgiveness, that is the path to a better world, revealed to us through a man and his story. I am unable to fully live up to such ideals, but like Data says, the struggle yields its own rewards. Those who take such ideas to heart are worthy in the eyes of the creator, because if all people were such, there would be little suffering in our world. We have the means to reduce our suffering, but we choose not to. God could, remove it for us, but then we will not become the free and good beings we are meant to be.
You don’t need God to have such ideals as the Christ demonstrated, but I find such ideas so much better than any of the alternatives, that I suspect they have divine origin. And even if they don’t, if I follow them, then I will contribute to making the world better regardless. God could take away my struggle and suffering, but that would leave me still flawed and unable to improve, and so it would be for all humanity as well.
Muslim here and sure (I’ve wanted to try this for a while now): The criteria for the first pillar are arbitrary. What’s being proposed is that a good creator wouldn’t allow their creation to suffer, or—taking it a step further—wouldn’t create a world where suffering is even possible. However, that would require human (or, really, lite in general) not to exist; give humans free will and suffering will happen. You could argue then that the act of creating humans was evil, which would be logically consistent, and in that case my answer is: I’ll drop (your conception of) the first pillar. God knows about suffering and is capable of stopping it but tolerates it for one purpose or another.
Full disclosure, I have no idea if the Muslim concept of god applies to the Epicurean paradox. I’m much more familiar with the Christian version which presents god as perfect in an absolute sense.
Yeah there’s a degree of obscurity - for the sake of this conversation I’d be okay with defining evil as deliberate suffering. Step on a Lego > hurts > not evil. Stick a knife in someone or like commit genocide > very clearly evil. Idk if the former is technically incompatible with the Epicurean paradox, but we have no shortage of actual extremes to choose from, so might as well focus on those.
Under the current laws of our universe, yes, but those are what are being scrutinized. The question this prompts is: is god not capable of creating free will without evil?
Needing to drop a pillar to make god work is the point of the whole exercise: a god that’s aware of evil and has the power to stop it, but chooses not to, is himself some degree of evil.
Islam does too, but with less emphasis on the idea of benevolence. Most relevantly, Islam states that life is a test by God and therefore suffering is an inherent part of it, which is kind of my framework here (though I don’t assume that in my argument below).
My point is that that’s logically inconsistent. A genocide killing thousands of people and an earthquake or famine killing thousands of people both leave thousands of people dead. Hell, even letting people die at all is suffering. Back to our postulates, pillar 2 states “his will is our reality.” When you get down to it, the only kind of world that would not run afoul of the Epicurean paradox would be a no-scarcity paradise with only 100% happy thoughts, and at that point we’d be looking at robots (or I suppose angels, if there’s a material difference), not humans. Worse, when you get down to it in such a world people would either lose the ability to even conceive of evil, or be prevented from committing it by an external force. Imagine if at the mall you always had an angel making you return your shopping cart, now multiply that by ten thousand times. Essentially we’re looking at a world of lobotomized robots, which to me doesn’t sound all that appealing.
It might be possible in some outlandish alternate universe, but restricting the discussion to things we can conceive of, evil is baked into the concept of free will. As I argued above, take away the capacity to commit evil and you remove almost the whole breadth of human emotion and activity, by definition running afoul of free will. Perhaps most importantly, though
at the core of this is the assumption that suffering is ontologically evil. This is very egotistical, but it also betrays a fundamental instability in the whole thing: Without objective morality (which immediately follows from the lack of belief in a creator), how can there be good and evil? This application of the Epicurean paradox assumes that evil can exist independent of a higher authority able to determine good and evil, so it’s a case of circular reasoning more than anything else. The Epicurean paradox can only be used to reject complete benevolence (which, well yes), not complete goodness.
Disagree - intent is an important factor if we’re talking about will. If you stub your toe on your coffee table, there’s no ill will coming from the table. If I approached you and whacked your toe with a mallet, there would be ill will coming from me. In those cases, the outcome is the same, but you’d be silly to be upset at the table; but very justified in being upset at me.
So, take something like thousands of deaths from an earthquake: in a godless universe, it’s a shitty situation, but not an evil one. There’s no intent: the universe has no will. Throw an omnipotent and omniscient controller into the mix and suddenly that earthquake isn’t something that just happened as a result of planetary physics; it’s something that was intentionally designed to happen.
…which kinda makes sense that you’d think of them as being the same, since through a theocratic lens they kind of are, it’s just that ones a genocide at the hands of men, and the other’s a genocide at the hands of god. Either way, both are very much evil.
Agreed, hence my disbelief.