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Problem of evil, is this a satisfying answer?

Nimos

Well-Known Member
I found this video with some guy trying to explaining the problem of evil. The guy is a Christian so he is obviously explaining it from that point of view. Its a fairly long video (around 52 minutes) so can't really sum it up in any meaningful way.

If anyone have time to watch it, regardless of your own religion or lack there off, do you think his explanation is satisfying in answering the problem of evil?

 

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
I found this video with some guy trying to explaining the problem of evil. The guy is a Christian so he is obviously explaining it from that point of view. Its a fairly long video (around 52 minutes) so can't really sum it up in any meaningful way.

If anyone have time to watch it, regardless of your own religion or lack there off, do you think his explanation is satisfying in answering the problem of evil?


How evil ultimately started? is not a question the Bible really answers so I don't feel the need to go there

Some say that God made the world good but changeable (for the worse)
 

Nimos

Well-Known Member
How evil ultimately started? is not a question the Bible really answers so I don't feel the need to go there

Some say that God made the world good but changeable (for the worse)
Just so I understand you correct, because it ain't answered in the bible, its not relevant or what? And you never wondered why God made the world good, but changeable for the worse?

I could understand your view if you were an atheist, well at least if you shared my view :D That good and evil doesn't exists, but then again I don't believe in God.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I found this video with some guy trying to explaining the problem of evil. The guy is a Christian so he is obviously explaining it from that point of view. Its a fairly long video (around 52 minutes) so can't really sum it up in any meaningful way.

If anyone have time to watch it, regardless of your own religion or lack there off, do you think his explanation is satisfying in answering the problem of evil?

He has some insight that has been clearly muddled by religious beliefs from what I've seen of the video so far, and leverages it against what he's been saying through the framework of doctrinal Christianity.

Like pain and the relationship it has with intellectualism and emotions and conflates it with the notion of free will.
 

syo

Well-Known Member
I found this video with some guy trying to explaining the problem of evil. The guy is a Christian so he is obviously explaining it from that point of view. Its a fairly long video (around 52 minutes) so can't really sum it up in any meaningful way.

If anyone have time to watch it, regardless of your own religion or lack there off, do you think his explanation is satisfying in answering the problem of evil?

I don't like how he defines evil.
 

Nimos

Well-Known Member
He has some insight that has been clearly muddled by religious beliefs from what I've seen of the video so far, and leverages it against what he's been saying through the framework of doctrinal Christianity.

Like pain and the relationship it has with intellectualism and emotions and conflates it with the notion of free will.

I don't like how he defines evil.
I think he is a decent guy and give it a good go, but I agree with you, that I don't really think he really adresses the issue, as much as he is talking around it. And eventually end up contradicting himself and fail to explain the most obvious questions people have. And also base a lot of it on assumptions that he just assume is true.

To me its clear that he haven't really examined the question of free will, he just assumes that since he can do A rather than B then he have it. He then splits evil into two different things "emotional" and "intellectual", which to me doesn't really seem to do him a lot of good. Except that he end up explaining that he can't explain emotional evil, which end up in the argument that maybe we don't really know or should demand to understand Gods reason. (Basically God work in mysteries ways argument, or he have no clue).

He then gets into a strange argument that we somehow need pain and suffering to learn, and uses an example of what life would be if you live it unable to feel pain etc. and that its obvious that no one would like that, only to later argue that once we finally get into heaven God and there is no longer pain and suffering, that the suffering we did indure here on Earth is a small price to pay for an eternity with God.....I mean he just said that no one wanted to live a life without pain?

Also he raises the question of how to explain a child suffering for cancer, but never answers it, except with it being a learning experience in life... But for who? What exactly did the child learn, if it dies?

And if I recall correctly he doesn't really explain why evil is needed in the first place, except that it might have something to do with the butterfly effect.

Obviously it good to hear some people having a go at us atheists as well, as being sad and bleak people :D
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
How evil ultimately started? is not a question the Bible really answers so I don't feel the need to go there

Some say that God made the world good but changeable (for the worse)
It’s a matter of perception, IMO. Example from personal experience: 5 adults are holding down a 12 year old boy pulling his bones apart as he’s screaming in pain. Evil? No; they’re setting his broken arm.

A man shoots his son’s dog in the middle of the street. Evil? No, the dog was rabid and about to attack his son.

Last: Is darkness a force or just an absence of light? It’s the latter. Is evil a force or just the absence of good (religiously good = godliness). The common US Christian perception is that evil is a force, but I disagree and consider it to be an absence of good.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
It’s a matter of perception, IMO. Example from personal experience: 5 adults are holding down a 12 year old boy pulling his bones apart as he’s screaming in pain. Evil? No; they’re setting his broken arm.

Would you see this action as evil if they could, and knew how to, do the same without making the child feel any pain whatsoever, but decided not to ?
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
Would you see this action as evil if they could, and knew how to, do the same without making the child feel any pain whatsoever, but decided not to ?
Again, that’s the point: Evil is a matter of perception and, as you pointed out, relative. What if it was their culture that “adversity creates character”? Evil or not?

FWIW, the boy was me in 1968. The doc needed me to feel pain so they would know when the bone was set.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Again, that’s the point: Evil is a matter of perception and, as you pointed out, relative. What if it was their culture that “adversity creates character”? Evil or not?

FWIW, the boy was me in 1968. The doc needed me to feel pain so they would know when the bone was set.

What if it was possible to create character without adversity ?
What if the doctors didn't need your pain to know when the bone was set ?
Would those actions then be evil ?
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
What if it was possible to create character without adversity ?
What if the doctors didn't need your pain to know when the bone was set ?
Would those actions then be evil ?
Is it? Do you really think rich, spoiled children, on average, grow up to be mature, responsible adults compared to those who grew up under more challenging circumstances?

It could be evil but I think malicious would be a better description in that case. Even if it was “evil”, does that change my initial definition?
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Is it? Do you really think rich, spoiled children, on average, grow up to be mature, responsible adults compared to those who grew up under more challenging circumstances?

Is there any logical impossibility ?

It could be evil but I think malicious would be a better description in that case. Even if it was “evil”, does that change my initial definition?

Not really. I just wanted to point out that circumstances such as those you mentioned don't work as an excuse in the 'problem of evil' when it comes down to God.
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
He says cancer is evil.

Cancer is a sickness. You can't say patients of cancer are evil.

A rapist is evil.
Agreed on cancer, although the rapist would more malicious than “evil”. Again it depends upon one’s definition of evil. The modern Christian one believes it’s an external force. Therefore, the rapist would be “possessed” by evil. Malicious indicates the rapist is responsible for their own actions and can’t blame the Devil for them.
 

Road Warrior

Seeking the middle path..
The doctors were not evil because they had an excuse, a circumstance, that made it so their action was not evil. They had no other way to help you other than by making you feel some pain. There is no excuse, no circumstance, for God that would have the same effect.
Are you trying to say God causes evil? If so, then you are saying evil is a force. I disagree that evil is a force.
 
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