IMO any God worth it's salt would be able to prevent evil by not allowing it to be a necessity for species survival.Quote from Ghost of Cutten:
Faulty logic - it is possible that there is a legitimate reason to allow evil to happen, without being malevolent.
IMO it's quite likely that evil is actually necessary for species survival, in which case allowing evil would actually be compelling evidence of benevolence, not the opposite. So IMO the god squad are going to win this little dispute
Epicurus on God
- Thread starter Gabfly1
- Start date
Quote from stu:
Faulty logic- You think a good person who falls victim to evil through no fault of their own makes a choice for evil?
Not sure how you draw that conclusion. How did you arrive at it?
It's also faulty logic to anthropomorphize God.
And our opinions of what's good or evil are not necessarily valid.
"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
-- William Shakespeare
And our opinions of what's good or evil are not necessarily valid.
"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
-- William Shakespeare
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:
Faulty logic - it is possible that there is a legitimate reason to allow evil to happen, without being malevolent.
IMO it's quite likely that evil is actually necessary for species survival, in which case allowing evil would actually be compelling evidence of benevolence, not the opposite. So IMO the god squad are going to win this little dispute
Define evil then we can chat.
1. Televanglist preachers who make their living off of donations from hard working citizens.
2. Preachers who dupe old ladies into donating a portion of their OAS money because if they don't, god will look down at them.
3. Terrorists who kill innocent civilians because they believe it is their duty to god.
4. Governments that take money from citizens, and use that money for religious purposes, even though not all of those citizens are religious. This includes tax breaks.
Quote from stu:
Faulty logic
It's not that simple though. For example, there is an instinct in humans to rape, plunder and pillage. Just look at any war. Why does that obvious evil exist?
Because people who rape, plunder, and pillage when they have a high chance of dying in a few days, weeks or months, are more likely to pass on their genes through violent sexual reproduction, or by winning a war via ruthless aggression, than nice smiley happy people who welcome their enemies, feel their pain, and take vows of chastity whilst respectfully refusing to lay a finger on vulnerable women of a fertile age.
So, natural selection ensures that the really good guys die out under certain situations, such as regular warfare, and that "evil" tendencies get bred into us. Our ancestors were the cavemen who were best at killing, conquering territory, hunting and fucking as many women as possible whether consensually or not. They weren't tree-hugging chaste pacifists.
If god did exist, and created excessively "nice guys", they would lose to "nasty guys", or at least nice-ish guys who have it in them to be ruthless when the chips are down. So, he would need to put a bit of steel and fire in our bellies, so we don't wimp out when our lives are on the line. And that inevitably means that in some situations we are going to have a violent response when it was uncalled for, and people who are a bit more violent than the norm will exist, and cause trouble.
True, but it was Epicurus who was doing that, not me. I was simply refuting his argument on its own terms.
Opinions differ as to what is good and evil. But that is completely irrelevant to the debate, because Epicurus does not try to define evil. He merely makes the assumption that it exists. So long as your definition of evil is such that you admit the occurence of at least one case of evil since the dawn of time, then that is sufficient for his assumption to be valid.
So basically your two points are correct, but not really relevant to the argument Epicurus is making.
But then that would come at other costs i.e. loss of free will, the inability to show moral conscience, lack of opportunities to demonstrate heroism and self-sacrifice, and so on. If one lacks the ability or free will to choose a path of evil, then there is nothing praiseworthy about choosing to be good.
Also, it would make us unable to be self-sustaining. Maybe god would view it as an acceptable price to pay that we have evil, in order to be able to more control our own destiny, rather than always be relying on divine intervention to set things 'right'.
The point is just that there are alternative scenarios to the ones Epicurus considered. His argument relies on their being only malevolent reasons to allow evil to exist, whereas there are plausible neutral or even beneficial reasons.
Being told that your vote will make a differnence when in reality it makes no difference at all, but I suppose that's more appropriate for another thread.
Quote from Gabfly1:
So, the mighty Epicurus is smart enough for you to quote and start another circle jerk of a thread about the existence of a Creator, but he's a complete dope for thinking that a God may even exist? Interesting!
Epicurus had great wisdom, and one other very important quality, humility. Man's enternal folly is to question the will and wisdom of the Gods, but only an arrogant fool would declare absolute certainty on the topic.