Why God allows Evil

[Estro Felino]

Also, I'll leave you with this quote from a man named Edward Abbey: "When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense"

I guess the language used in the OP is simple, clear and perfectly transparent.
Perfectly understandable to primary school pupils.
And not because I am not a Native speaker, I use this kind of language even when I speak in Italian.

 

[MikeF]

All the atheists I know in real life can differentiate between god and evil.
You don't need a deity to do that.

Presumably, if evil is a theological concept, then an atheist does not subscribe to the concept of evil. Additionally, for the atheist, since there is no such thing as an actual 'god', or 'gods' for that matter, all the atheist is left with are mythologies, and in some, a 'god' can be the embodiment of evil, right?

 

[Estro Felino]

Presumably, if evil is a theological concept, then an atheist does not subscribe to the concept of evil. Additionally, for the atheist, since there is no such thing as an actual 'god', or 'gods' for that matter, all the atheist is left with are mythologies, and in some, a 'god' can be the embodiment of evil, right?

I did not understand this concept.

 

[Estro Felino]

Why isn't he a dictator if he's omnibenevolent? The wise and just benevolent dictator is the optimal form of government for as long as it lasts, the problem being that the next dictator might not be so benevolent. But with a god, that's not a concern. So why isn't this god leading mankind?



Why? Their will doesn't seem too respectable, gets many of them into trouble, and creates suffering for others. Why would a good god allow that if it had the power to do better? The best parent instills the best values he or she can into his or her children. Why doesn't this deity do the same if it exists and can do that? There is no good reason.



Why? Why not choose for them? What good can come of granting people not only the ability to be malicious, but also the drives to do so? None.

The problem the skeptic has is that you've just described a godless universe, but want to say that there is a god anyway who makes choices indistinguishable from what would be the case if it didn't exist. Of course we aren't subject to nonhuman dictators. Of course we have wills. Of course we have proclivities directing us to do what a crocodile or lion would do that will manifest despite higher centers attempting to tame these instincts. Of course some people will not contain the animal. These things are all expected in a godless universe, but cannot be accounted for assuming a tri-omni deity except with weak, just-so arguments like those.

Skeptics are telling you why they don't believe such a deity exists. The deity you described does nothing, and could be said about any nonexistent entity. It's true for Superman, too. He doesn't dictate much or interfere with free will.

There is no reason for the critical thinker to believe this tri-omni god with the same characteristics as the nonexistent exists, so he doesn't. That's the skeptic's argument. And as I've posted a few times lately, with atheism, a whole raft of enigmas such as this one just evaporate away, which I understand as meaning that that is the correct position to hold.

It's a pretty common occurrence that when people choose to believe something incorrect and double down on it in the face of conflicting evidence and argument, they are forced to come up with dozens of just-so answers for why the evidence fails to support or contradicts the erroneous belief that all go away when the correct position is adopted instead. Why is there useless suffering? Easy for an atheist. Why is the Genesis account so different for the scientific account? The theist needs pages to come up with his apologetics, but the atheist expects myths to be wrong. Why does scripture appear to contradict itself in places? That's another exercise in verbal gymnastics for the believer, but entirely expected by the unbeliever. Repeatedly, theistic doctrine creates problems that atheism solves.

Consider Sagan's invisible dragon in the garage. In case you haven't seen it, here it is.

A man claims "A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints. "Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire. "Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. "Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."​

And so on. The man counters every physical test proposed with a special, just-so explanation of why it won't work. Your argument above looks very much like that one. Solution? Since this dragon has exactly the same characteristic of a nonexistent dragon, call it that, and all the problems just evaporate away. Of course there's nothing see, feel, or measure. That's what nonexistent means.

Consider Occam's Razor - the simplest narrative that accounts for all relevant observations is preferred. No god is much simpler than an undetectable god with several dozen qualities that keep it undetectable, like the invisible dragon

Also, I'll leave you with this quote from a man named Edward Abbey: "When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense"

My purpose was to provide atheists with a reason that explains why God does not stop evil.
Why God does not intervene.

My point strengthens God's non-existence argument.
It doesn't weaken it.
Because it highlights God's inaction.

 

[Ella S.]

IMO



If 'God' of the Christian Bible would be a dictator if he/she/it prevented evil, are we being dictatorial by creating laws and enforcing them such that it acts as a disincentive for people to act freely? Why is law enforcement appropriate for us but not for 'God'?

If 'Satan' kills all the good people, won't they just go to heaven? Isn't getting into heaven the goal? Why fight against that?

Under Christianity, God does have his own laws that he enforces, but he doesn't punish people before they violate his laws and he usually gives them time to repent their transgressions of divine law before Judgment Day.

 

[MikeF]

IMO

Under Christianity, God does have his own laws that he enforces, but he doesn't punish people before they violate his laws and he usually gives them time to repent their transgressions of divine law before Judgment Day.

Do you consider the "laws" delineated by the Christian god of the Bible to be clear and consistent?

Punishing before one transgresses wouldn't seem fair. However, there seems to be no discernable punishment after a transgression either. There is no feedback whatsoever. And in the end, all one has to do is repent to avoid eternal torture. To my mind, that is not very strong incentive for one to follow the straight and narrow path.

Yet the moral and virtuous atheist will be condemned to eternal torture for not accepting 'God', 'Jesus', or 'Allah' or following prescribed physical and verbal practices (which vary according to denomination).

Not a well conceived system in my view.

 

[MikeF]

I did not understand this concept.

You had stated that the atheists you know can differentiate between "god and evil". Perhaps that was a typo and you meant 'good and evil'. So I was simply saying that in some mythologies, some gods are evil and hence nothing to differentiate.

If you mean atheists can differentiate between what their society deems to be right and wrong, then yes, certainly I would agree. The atheist would simply attribute the source of those concepts differently.

 

[Ella S.]

IMO



Do you consider the "laws" delineated by the Christian god of the Bible to be clear and consistent?

Punishing before one transgresses wouldn't seem fair. However, there seems to be no discernable punishment after a transgression either. There is no feedback whatsoever. And in the end, all one has to do is repent to avoid eternal torture. To my mind, that is not very strong incentive for one to follow the straight and narrow path.

Yet the moral and virtuous atheist will be condemned to eternal torture for not accepting 'God', 'Jesus', or 'Allah' or following prescribed physical and verbal practices (which vary according to denomination).

Not a well conceived system in my view.

I certainly don't regard the Biblical laws very highly, either. They also support slavery, animal cruelty, misogyny, witch hunts, and queerphobia.

I find them horrific, quite honestly, and it terrifies me that humanity created those laws and upheld them for so long, without even needing to address the uncomfortable metaphysics of Hell and repentance. It scares me even more that people are still trying to promote the book that teaches these things and get away with it because they lie about how none of this is in there.

But that's what the Bible is referring to when they talk about God's justice and God's goodness. It's very different from the sensibilities of any compassionate person.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I guess the language used in the OP is simple, clear and perfectly transparent. Perfectly understandable to primary school pupils.

Yes, your words are very understandable, and your English appears to be better than most native speakers.

I think that what Abbey was commenting on was not the writing style, but on overly-complex explanations. Reconsider the invisible dragon argument. The language was clear and simple, but the argument wasn't. It required multiple ad hoc answers, which, when considered collectively, comprise a turgid argument.

My purpose was to provide atheists with a reason that explains why God does not stop evil. Why God does not intervene.

That's what it appeared to be. What did you think of my alternative explanation for why God doesn't stop evil. It argues that if God doesn't do anything detectable - doesn't force man to do anything - why even propose that hypothesis. It's unneeded complexity. Drop the god, and it's all still explainable. What does a god add to the state where we have no dictator, no barrier to expressing free will, and the ability to go toward the light or the darkness? Nothing. We have all of that without a god hypothesis, and a much more parsimonious answer.

My point strengthens God's non-existence argument. It doesn't weaken it. Because it highlights God's inaction.

I agree that it does that, but I would never have guessed that that was your point. I thought that you were arguing for God's existence and explaining that inaction from a theistic perspective.

 

[Sheldon]

In the afterlife, the wicked who have voted for their master....cannot be in the same room as the good who voted for Jesus...
That sounds fair to me.

What about people who couldn't believe any of it, because there is no objective evidence?

 

[Alien826]

Under Christianity, God does have his own laws that he enforces, but he doesn't punish people before they violate his laws and he usually gives them time to repent their transgressions of divine law before Judgment Day.

Yes.

The difference between this approach and what we limited humans do is that we try to stop crime before it occurs. I suppose the one commonality is the idea of deterrence. But what would our justice system look like if we followed God's (supposed) method? Whenever we knew that someone was about to commit a crime, we would just let him go ahead, with all the attendant suffering to the innocent. Then we would simply make a note of the crime and at some indeterminate time in the future we would apply punishment. Instead, we do our best with what we have, which is a mixture of control, deterrence and punishment. It's the best we have because we can't know in advance when every crime will be committed, and though we can hone our detective skills, we will always fall short and some crime will occur. Not so with God, who reportedly has absolute knowledge. Therefore he doesn't do his best, not by a long shot.

Apologists attempt to answer this question. One answer I haven't seen here lately is the idea of "the best of all possible worlds". It goes something like this.

- God has a higher purpose that we don't know about that is good.
- Everything that we experience here is part of what he is doing to serve that purpose.
- God is perfectly good, so he has to chose a method that involves the least amount of evil (suffering, whatever).
- Therefore what we see is part of a greater plan that justifies the evil in this world, which cannot be less than it is.

My response to that takes us outside the purely philosophical realm. To defeat the argument, we only have to find one example of something that could reasonably be less evil, without having any effect on anything significant. That doesn't work within the argument, because whatever we come up with, the answer will be that we can't know that the example is correct, because we don't know what God knows. Outside it though, common sense suggests otherwise. Could God have prevented the Ukraine war by a subtle change to Putin's environment? Seems likely, and it need not be detectable (as intervention) by humans.

 

[Estro Felino]

What about people who couldn't believe any of it, because there is no objective evidence?

It is not a sin.

 

[John53]

You sound like you are on the side of Christians who want to get into politics and force Christian values onto everyone.

Really? Because that is not what I intended at all. I was trying to give an analogy that shows why I lack belief in God. I accept that my written communication skills are not the best and apologise for the confusion.

Where do you think it stops. Does God step in with a child being tortured and not with a child being bullied. Does God step in with a child being bullied and not with someone throwing a rock through a window? How seemingly innocuous would the evil have to be for you to think it is OK for God to ignore it?

I can only judge by my morals. If I had the ability to stop all 3 of your examples I would.

Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.
Was this a good time for God to step in or does God get condemned for stepping in then with the flood?

No idea, the evil is not described.

Is it a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't, so God is doing things

That seems to be a hazard of accepting leadership roles.

His way and looking for the long term good and not the short term.
Then in the long term, making sure that real justice is given for everyone and restore what people have lost because of evil, so that the short term suffering is forgotten.

Do you have any actual evidence to back these claims?

That is not saying that it is good for us to stand back and do nothing when we see evil, but we are not God and cannot see and work towards a long term good by doing that.

So we should be held accountable but God shouldn't?

 

[John53]

In an atheistic paradigm, what in the world is evil? Can you explain? How do you come to that? What is the criteria of "evil" and where do you get that criteria from?

Before I answer any of your questions I will require an agreement that your intention is to have a friendly discussion and you will not resort to insults or editing posts to change the meaning.

 

[firedragon]

Before I answer any of your questions I will require an agreement that your intention is to have a friendly discussion and you will not resort to insults or editing posts to change the meaning.

Okay John. I promise.

 

[John53]

Okay John. I promise.

Fair enough, just making my breakfast, as soon as I finish that I will attempt to answer the questions.

 

[firedragon]

Fair enough, just making my breakfast, as soon as I finish that I will attempt to answer the questions.

Not fair. I am hungry now and it's all your fault.

 

[John53]

In an atheistic paradigm, what in the world is evil? Can you explain? How do you come to that? What is the criteria of "evil" and where do you get that criteria from?

I'm not really sure of the word paradigm so I'm using my understanding of a dictionary definition but as far as I'm aware there are no organised atheistic groups that set out guidelines for other atheists to follow. I don't speak for all atheists.

My personal criteria of evil comes from my life experiences which would include but not limited to my parents, teachers, friends, relatives. I would then use those experiences to judge the situation.

 

[firedragon]

I'm not really sure of the word paradigm so I'm using my understanding of a dictionary definition but as far as I'm aware there are no organised atheistic groups that set out guidelines for other atheists to follow. I don't speak for all atheists.

My personal criteria of evil comes from my life experiences which would include but not limited to my parents, teachers, friends, relatives. I would then use those experiences to judge the situation.

The reality is, there is no one monolith in any religion, though it's true religions are organised in some way or the other.

When I asked a question from an atheistic paradigm, it does not have to be from an organised doctrine. It is from a world view. Suffering is not necessarily evil to be attributed to a God. That's the reason to question the question of Evil from an atheistic paradigm.

I don't know what is the dictionary definition is. If evil is "immoral", then what is the standard of immoral from an atheistic paradigm? Where is the stem?

 

[PearlSeeker]

No, you would be a savior. Because you chose good. The party of the good.

But God cannot and will not force men to choose good, by stopping them from doing evil.

Stopping from doing evil is not the same as forcing to do good. God would also be a Savior if He interfered.