Because I am mainly interested in discussing the nature of God when it comes to Good and Evil.
See The Riddle of Epicurus or Plato’s Euthyphro or Spinoza’s Ethics or … consider Occam’s Razor: the ubiquitous fact of gratuitous suffering (evil) is completely consistent with the claim ‘theism is false’ – there is no “problem of evil” because there is no (triple-omni / providential) “God”.
Again, Mok, since you haven’t answered the question:
Which apparently is no inhibition to you declaring yourself judge of good and evil.
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I am afraid that I have to repeat myself. In this thread, I am not interested in proving God. There are several proofs for the existence of God that I don’t want to discuss here. I assume that God exists and discuss his nature. In fact, I showed that the existence of Good and Evil is consistent with a Benevolent and Malevolent God. So, no problem with that.
But we are not at all certain. Is homosexuality evil? Capital punishment? Drug use? Being transgender? Euthanasia? Female circumcision? Etc., etc. Even within a single religion there is no agreement about what constitutes righteous behaviour.
And there is certainly no agreement among humans as to what reality is. There are theists, deists, atheists, agnostics, pragmatists, Platonists, panpsychists and physicalists.
There are also numerous philosophers who do not use terms like “good” or “evil”. And I certainly don’t use them.
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Judging what to do, Good or Evil, is a very difficult task for me right now, since I don’t have any principle to derive the appropriate act. But I can tell certain things. Good and Evil exist. So if there is a God, then He must be Malevolent and Benevolent.
Yes, we can divide emotions, thoughts, and acts into Good, Neutral, and Evil. For example, love is a good emotion, whereas hate is Evil, etc.
It is personal, but it is certainly Good for homosexual people, since they love it.
That is mixed, Good and Evil, since two parties are involved in any crime, criminal, and victim. The victim certainly loves the punishment, but the criminal hates it.
It is personal. Some people love it some not.
It is personal. Some people love it, some don’t.
Hell yeah. People should go for it. What is the point of dying in pain?
I disagree with this and regarding your answers below, they are at odds with all those who consider these matters to be evil. “Some love and some don’t” is not a solution, but you have hit on a key point, that which some people consider evil others may consider good and may even have “love” for such things. So the point holds, we do not have agreement on this matter. Perhaps we can leave this here. Take care.
In the Gnosticism branch of Christianity, which was declared as heresy by the Catholic church, we have an ensemble of gods. Barbelo is the true God and Jesus must reach Him. Nebro is the vengeful God (YHWH) who created the material world and Saklas, the fool god, created humans in his own image. Some of us have the so-called divine spark (a piece of Barbelo) and these folks are to ascend to Barbelo’s realm; Jesus’ revelation was precisely that. That’s why Judas is the hero in the gospel of Judas. Jesus told Judas, “You’ll exceed all. For you’ll sacrifice the man who clothes me.” There are other divine beings with their own axe to grind.
There are many ways to defend orthodox Christianity on the matter of evil. God can’t be both good and evil, period. It might be good to revisit the Epicurean paradox to refresh our memories. Is He willing but unable? Then is He impotent? Is He able but unwilling? Then is He malevolent? Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh happiness?
Perfect goodness is goodness to the highest degree.
Perfect power is power used only for good and not for evil.
Perfect desire is desire only for good and not for evil.
Yes, some people were.
No, God does not have to be “Omni”. God have to be perfect.
Your argument is that God is responsible for sin and evil.
My argument is that God is not responsible for sin and evil.
My statement above supports my argument.
I deal with the problem of evil by endeavoring to choose to be good and not evil.
Personal choice is a personal matter as long as it only relates to personal life. Farewell.
God is both Malevolent and Benevolent. This is argued in the OP. You are free to show that OP is wrong.
Embrace God as It is, Malevolent and Benevolent, and all your questions are answered.
Could you provide a reference?
God has to be Omni otherwise He is not God!
I was talking about the first sin and God’s responsibility in the other thread.
No, I mean, how do you resolve the problem that Evil exists in the creation of a Benevolent God?
Don’t you think love can be the cause of murder or greed?
Hate might play a moral function for a kind of good, to deter behavior that a group has deemed as undesirable.
There was a guy on Maui who was recently caught on video throwing a rock at the head of an endangered monk seal. The public response was a kind of frenzy of hateful comments, doxxing, and the man was even physically beaten. If you could imagine an ideal moral response for all people for this, as in full alignment with what God wishes/intends, what would it be?
If God’s law cannot be followed because we are so ignorant of what God’s law is, why doesn’t God try harder to help us. Why isn’t the natural response, what has occured, the will of God?
Yes, it could if we have a mixed nature.
I would say that hate has a function to deter the behavior that is not desired. Hate and love do not have a moral function, though. Please read below.
We are entering into ethics here, which is a hard subject. Three factors play a role in any behavior: 1) Genes, 2) Environment, and 3) Self. We can only be held responsible for those wrong actions that we know are wrong after excluding the genes and environment contribution. This process is necessary if we want to see if the person deserves the punishment and how severe the punishment should be. I would say that a careful investigation is required to see why the guy throws stones at the head of the poor animal. Normal people don’t behave in such a manner, and hate is a general response from normal people in such a situation. People, however, have no right to beat the guy, and they are responsible if they do so. If the reason for the crime is genes, then there is not much we can do about it except to hold the criminal in a fair condition in which he cannot commit the crime anymore. If the reason is in the environment, like bad teaching, then he needs proper teaching. If the reason is a bad environment, such as child abuse, then he needs therapy…
To be honest, I don’t know the main reason why God does not intervene in all occasions. We are, however, intellectual beings, so we can analyze any situation and find a solution for it. Perhaps there is a strong reason that we have to learn things on our own rather than be taught constantly by God.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. ~ Isaiah 45:7
Or indifferent or unaware. Jung’s Answer to Job offers an interesting alternative to the eternally unchanging omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God. The God of Job is coerced by Satan to test Job. I won’t go into how Jung interprets the incarnation and crucifixion, except to say that he present it not as needed for the absolution of human evil, but rather for the absolution of God’s ‘evil on account of unknowing’. Jung’s God, at least the God of the OT, is incapable of self-reflection. He is an evolving God, like Whitehead’s God. He incarnates in order to learn about what it is to be human (or any mortal creature).
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Unfortunately, again you merely assert without arguing, MoK, and avoid addressing the subjects I’ve raised.
I don’t understand you. You quote a verse from the Bible, in which God explicitly claimed that He does evil, and then you claim that there are many ways to defend a Benevolent God. I would be happy to hear your defence.
We could begin with free will. 