Not a direct answer to your question, but people misspeak all the time, so there’s no reason that wouldn’t apply to their children. However, hurtful things are still hurtful, so “I didn’t mean it” is more of a statement of fact than a get out of jail free card.

A scam requires someone to make money (or some other benefit) off someone else. That’s the case with modern Christianity, sure, but generalizing that to all religion comes with a hefty [citation needed].

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.

(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.

Could you expand (or link to something that expands) on the Solomon thing?

Cutting out philosophical arguments, prophecies and “no way this is a coincidence” types of stuff (which, yeah, there’s a lot of those), it’s a combination of

We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. But is it not sufficient concerning your Lord that He is, over all things, a Witness?

-Quran 41:53

They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords besides Allah and also the Messiah, son of Maryam (Mary), though they were commanded to worship only One God. There is no god except Him. His Glory is far above any partners they ascribe (to Him).

-9:31

And let not those who [greedily] withhold what Allah has given them of His bounty ever think that it is better for them. Rather, it is worse for them. Their necks will be encircled by what they withheld on the Day of Resurrection. And to Allah belongs the heritage of the heavens and the earth. And Allah, with what you do, is [fully] Acquainted.

-3:180

Of course there’s a lot more where that came from, but the point is: We here have a religious text that encourages independent thought and pondering of the world and itself, promises harsh punishment for hoarding wealth and unequivocally condemns priestly institutions. Does that sound like an attempt to gain wealth or power? Exactly. Also this

He [Muhammad] looked displeased and turned (his attention) away, because a blind man came to him (interrupting his discourse). What would make you realise? Perhaps he would purify himself (by your attention),

-80:1-3

is not how a cult leader talks about himself. It’s admittedly hard to parse from the translation, but this is a somewhat harsh admonition of Muhammad here. The segment continues until verse 10 if anyone wants continue reading, but the gist of it is “you’re ignoring the man seeking guidance and trying to convince those who reject it? That is not how that works. Yes, even if it’s a random blind guy.”

Maybe it’s not enough for them to buy a new car? I mean it’s 6 years old; I’m pretty sure Tesla was the only player in the EV scene back then.

Why, though?

Civil war? I have literally never heard anything about this. Best case scenario Putin is assassinated and another autocrat replaces him.

Russia is doing… fine? I mean the Russian people sure aren’t, but authoritarianism in Russia isn’t in any real threat despite the war. There’s also absolutely no comparison with China, which is getting stronger by the day. Weak and incompetent authoritarians are overthrown, and the CCP is neither weak nor incompetent.

their dictatorship is forcefully dissolved.

So never.

This question shows up every now on c/nostupidquestions, so look it up there.

What if they take it seriously and suffer the other consequences? Because remember, the biggest threat to Germany currently isn’t Russia or China or even America; it’s the far right. Expanding the military this much would put a lot of strain on the budget and inevitably come at the cost of social welfare, further fueling the far right as living conditions get worse and worse. And on top of that taking healthy young adults away from a workforce that already needs more people to do something wholly unproductive can’t be good for the economy. You’re completely ignoring the opportunity cost here; there are simply more important and pressing problems that deserve attention and budget than a hypothetical with nothing to back it up.

WWII jokes aside, it’s absolutely inane that Germany is actually taking “threats from Russia” seriously. It’s one thing to keep their military in shape, but nothing we’ve seen from Russia makes expanding it even remotely necessary. Spend this momey on the poor you corporate stooge. And let’s not get into the demographic crisis these idiots are exacerbating with their treatment of immigrants.

Trump becoming submissive and breedable when faced with a strong man.

(Kill me).

I gladly welcome New Zealand into the third world.

You’re citing my text but cutting off just before the point I was trying to make.

Yes, because my point is that your point doesn’t make sense.

I think be would still side with the people who claim to follow his ideology

Why…? That’s not how leftwing politics worked, ever, and it’s not like there has ever been a shortage of leftwing criticism of Leninism and Stalinism.

r in Marx’s case admitting that his ideas didn’t work or the fact that they didn’t work as intended cost the lives of millions.

Yeah that’s my point: They’re not his ideas; they’re their ideas. Lenin for example, aside from being an authoritarian dickhead, was an intellectual juggernaut and a lot of his ideas would be baked into the foundation of the Soviet Union. What you’re presenting here is a false dichotomy.

It’s important to understand that 20th century communist states weren’t just “communist” (there’s no such ideology as communism); they were Marxist-Leninist, which despite the name is a rebranding of Bolshevism by Stalin. “Socialist” and “communist” are incredibly broad terms, and the idea that communist = implementing Marx’s ideas is so reductive as to be just wrong. Now Marx’s opinion would likely vary depending on time and place, but at least he’d probably condemn Stalin’s USSR as an authoritarian hellhole. Beyond that I have no idea, but many Marxists who were contemporary to the things you describe condemned them and many others supported them, so we can’t make a realistic guess without projecting our own values on him. Basically what you’re asking is analogous to “what would Adam Smith think about the current state of the US;” it’s something we can speculate about but generally isn’t as salient a point as seem to you think it is.

PS: I suspect you don’t know much about Marx’s ideas, so you should start from there. First, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn’t necessarily an actual dictatorship (that’s not how the term is used by Marx).

I think if he were honest with himself he would see that what he got wasn’t what he had envisioned in any of the countries that claimed to be communist/socialist.

I mean… obviously? Bolshevik theory (which is what all future socialist/“socialist” states would adopt) was their own take on Marxism with a lot of original thought. That’s where the authoritarianism comes from, and it’s not like the Bolsheviks were trying to hide it. Odds are Marx would denounce the Bolsheviks as heretics.

No no you see it’s only Science TM if they can use it to shit on Christians.