Gambit
Well-Known Member
"God allows evil to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom." - St. Thomas Aquinas
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Why does God allow evil?
- Thread starter Gambit
- Start date
"God allows evil to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom." - St. Thomas Aquinas
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
So if God fitted humans with a moral compass, why did he align it so that good and evil are evenly balanced? Why not align it more towards the good? God must have realised that aligning the compass the way he did would lead to all kinds of horrible events and suffering, genocides, wars, child abuse, crime, etc etc. So God wanted humans to suffer this much, intended for it to happen?
It don't make sense and neither do the convoluted explanations that people trot out.
It don't make sense and neither do the convoluted explanations that people trot out.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Hmmm. And the greater good is what exactly?
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Spiritual progress!
Almighty God could have made us as 'robots' (as the angels effectively are), but that clearly is not why He created this universe..
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
So how exactly was the Holocaust "spiritual progress"?
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
I think you know the answer to that..
What's the point of picking out a particular event? We are discussing why God allows evil.
Any evil event is an evil event!
Spiritual progress comes as a result of human beings having a free-will .. if we weren't capable of evil, we would not have the responsibility that comes with it.
Gambit
Well-Known Member
That's what you have to learn for yourself.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
But I don't. It's a question I have asked repeatedly and have still heard no coherent answer. One poster implied that it was OK because they all went to Heaven, but that isn't much of an answer at all.
So would you like to try answering it? How exactly was the Holocaust spiritual progress?
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
That's just a cop-out. I'm asking for the answer from a theistic perspective. All the answers I've heard so far don't make sense, but I live in hope of a coherent response.
Gambit
Well-Known Member
The greatest good is God himself. But it requires faith in order to learn that, and right now, your faith is very weak (almost nonexistent).
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
So how was the Holocaust spiritual progress, and was it part of God's plan?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
As a practicing Buddhist, I trust that you believe in karma. Right?
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
I tell you one thing .. you won't make any spiritual progress by 'harping on' about events in some particular war..
You think that you are being clever, but you are not .. evil is evil, and mankind is capable of it..
Why did God create mankind capable of it? He wants us to take responsibility !!
Anybody who commits evil will have to answer for it. Nobody likes to suffer, yet everyone likes pleasure .. that's reality .. and Almighty God is the Fairest of All Judges.
The 'test' applies to believers and disbelievers alike .. why should it be that believers don't complain (ie. they understand that some suffering is inevitatble) and disbelievers cry 'foul' ?!?
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
I believe in very little these days, but I have seen that all actions have consequences.
What I don't find credible is the idea of us as rats in God's maze.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Please just answer the question.
How exactly was the Holocaust spiritual progress?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Because it goes to the heart of the question. It's one of the most "evil" events in human history. God created the conditions for it to happen, and then allowed it to happen. So a supposedly loving God is responsible for this appalling genocide, and all the other genocides and world wars. A loving God would never have set up the conditions for such appalling suffering, or allowed it to happen.
So logically either God isn't loving ( which the OT seems to support ) or God doesn't exist.
I rest my case.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Who has the final responsibility? Why God should not be held responsible for a defective creation. The whole idea is wretched.
Heaven and hell are ideas created by society, so that at least some who might be thinking of doing evil deeds are held back. That is why people are still frightened of hell and become jihadies to reach heaven and its 72 houris.
Or you can ask if the Peshawar attack, the French attack or the IS or Boko Haram killings, rapes and abductions are spiritual progress? It seems Muslims in particular are making great spiritual progress.
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Gambit
Well-Known Member
Two questions:
1) Why are you placing "evil" in scare quotes?
2) Did Adolf Hitler have Buddha-nature?
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Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
It looks like you have no serious rebuttal.