Is God Evil?

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It may be off topic, but it's too offensive to be ignored. If you'd ever visited Africa you would see that most of its children - even the ones who beg for water - play, laugh, and enjoy life like any other children. African parents have as much right to make babies to love as you have. Are you not aware that advocating "neutering" the people of a continent is equivalent to genocide of all its myriad nations? Or do you think genocide is OK, so long as it happens to poor black people and not rich pink people like you? My God. Talk about evil.

 

Evil is, as I understand it, discord with or disobediace of the Will of God. In giving man free will, God gives man the opportunity to freely choose to obey or disobey his will. Evil is just a short word for "that which is against the Will of God." Did God create Evil?? No, but he did create free beings with the capability do do it - there are many complicated explanations for this, but to put it simply, which is better: obediance out of someone's own free will, or obediance because you have no choice? Obviously, the first choice is more glorifying to God (or any other type of master/leader/father figure) than the second choice.

It is interesting that just about all of the major theological questions that we ask all deal with free will in some way or another!!

 

No.

 

This is slightly off topic , but for the past several nights since I created this thread, I've awaken in the middle of the night, incredibly freaked out. I'm not trying to make lite here, and I am totally serious. In the dreams that I can remember, there was just this dark space, in the rough shape of a person, reaching out to get me. I woke up sweating, heart racing like I had just had the **** scared out of me. Its kinda freaky coincidence.

 

God is not evil or good (if he exists) , those are just human's definitions for things.

A more important question than Does god exist is that Does that matter?

And Elios, that is probably because of your parent's fault. If you were taught to believe in god, doubting his existance/alingment makes you nervous.

 

Sure it does, if God existed (which is not the question right now) he would control our afterlives.
Which are eternal, as far as that is imaginable (time would mean nothing if there was a thing as eternal)

 

god is evil, i tryed praying to him but did he listen ..... NO!!!!
so if he does exsist then hes an ungratful little **** who should pay more attention to his "children"
also ask any person about "have they had there prayers to god answered " and you will find there answer is mainly NO!!

 

Shura ... somehow I'm not surprised. You can only hate something you know, so I figured you had some religion in your background and someone/something hurt you.

My answer ... this is a tough one. Here's some basic thinking ...


The following four propositions appear to constitute an intractable contradiction:
1. God exists as a concrete being distinct from the cosmos.
2. Evil exists, i.e., God does not eliminate evil.
3. God is all-loving (and therefore would eliminate evil).
4. God is all-powerful (and therefore could eliminate evil).

The latter three propositions (evil exists, God is all-loving, God is all-powerful) is commonly known as the inconsistent triad because they are often thought to pose an intractable contradiction. In fact, this is how "the problem of evil" is often defined.

Logically, one must either deny one of the above four propositions or find some way of affirming all of them; i.e., one must adopt one of the following views:

a. God does not exist (atheism).
b. Evil does not exist (monism, e.g., in Buddhism).
c. God is not all-loving (dualism, e.g., in Taoism).
d. God is not all-powerful (finite godism, e.g., in liberal Judaism).
e. God exists, is all-powerful and all-loving, and evil also exists (theism).

The last-named option appears self-contradictory; resolving this apparent contradiction is the task of theodicy (Greek theos, God, and dikaois, just). I could write a much longer reason as to "why" I believe this, but I think that would take me a bit off-topic and much deeper than I can go while on lunch break.

Elios ... on your dreams, I'm not surprised. I think this is real stuff, and its also important stuff!

 

A short answer for the theism proposition might be that evil exists so that choice can exist. If there is no evil (i.e., nothing exists that is not a part of God) then there is no opportunity for choice, and humans become automatons. But we are given the choice between good and evil so that we might appreciate the effects of that choice more. I think I've elaborated on this somewhere else already...

 

@Mathetais

Please post more!

@Capstone,
I am now in a state that I can deny the existance of free will, proof it to me

 

Morgoth, it's pretty easy. If we had no free will, we would all be automatons. And if we were all automatons, we should all be good, shouldn't we? If somebody's controlling all of us, they're doing a pretty crappy job of it.

 

Ah but now name an action of free will without actually being a slave towards inner desires

 

I don't believe in god general. Ofcourse there is Light and spirits and stuff, but my main belief can be gathered in eight simple words.
'Do what ye will, an it harm none.'

 

That's hardly necessary (why do I feel like this is a conversation?). My inner desires are still mine. You might say you are a slave to yourself, but that does not make you any the less free.

But in any case, it's not hard to do what you ask either. I'm hungry. I see a doughnut on the counter. I love doughnuts. I desire that doughnut. But I know that my sister also loves doughnuts, and it is the only one left. So I choose NOT to eat the doughnut, saving it for her. I have denied my inner desire, which is a free will choice. Not acting is every bit as much a choice as acting.

 

If there is a god it is an uncaring entity that just created the whole universe. Why should he care about one single world out of an almost infinite number? It is evne less likely he should care about mere individuals on that world.

What is sad though is that religion has been used for so much evil that I have a hard time seeing any mitigating things about it. When you have a faith you belive you sit on the truth and thus you are right, which entitles you to do the most horrid acts. The recent terrosist attacks are just a contemporary example of that. There are countless others throughout history. The world would be so much better off without religion, even though it is a comfort to so many people it breeds so much strife that it is more or less inherently evil.
If there was a god that cared the least I am sure he would be disgusted with all that claims to serve him, even the ones that are understanding and 'good'.
Although I think that an understanding religion is a paradox, if you have faith you must believe that your faith is the true one, otherwise there wouldnt be any purpose to it. Thus you can never accept the believes of others, even if you do nothing you still think they are doomed in one way or another or else you cant take your own faith seriously. Thus if you believe in the Bible you must believe that all others are doomed, and if you believe that and are a good person the right thing would be to go out and spread the word in any way possible. But that is not very common nowadays because it is not popular.
I will stop ranting here.

[ March 17, 2003, 20:43: Message edited by: joacqin ]

 

Then you have given yourself in to a inner desire of "being nice towards your sister"

 

As I mentioned, that is still a free choice for me to make.

You could just as well simply say that I have given in to myself.

 

Capstone, you were just unselfish.

 

Joa: But the idea that 'your religion has to be the only right one' does not necessarily exist in every religion. A great many buddhist nations have the majority of their population that believes in buddhism and doaism, and whatever other religion they happened to have around when they grew up. Even if one of the religions happened to disagree with another, they ignore that part of it, and are pretty much just content with themselves.
And if the issue is whether God is evil or not....The argument here is that God is uncaring. Uncaring is not necessarily evil. In fact, someone who is generally thought of as evil cares about something a very great deal. It is as they say, that hate can bind two people closer than love can. And someone who is evil often cares more than someone who is good. So, if God is uncaring, ambivalant towards us, even, is he evil at that point?

 

No it just means that one desire was stronger than the other