by Tahoe 27 Replies latest social humour
We all know the J W answer to the above question and ,like me , have stated it many times on people's doorsteps.
We can either accept that of allow the above "paradox " to turn us into atheists. Nobody can come up with a better answer so we either accept it , or something like it , or not ......it is up to you.
The main flaw in the Epicurean paradox, as I see it, is that it makes a semantic error. It assumes that if a thing has omnipotence — the ability to do anything— then that thing is then capable of doing everything simultaneously. It reduces to the sillier and more obvious question: “If God can go left and right, why can’t s’he do both?” Of course, perhaps an omnipotent being could manage somehow to go left and right simultaneously, but how would it have to change the world as we know it in order to make that possibility a reality?
The problem is that we humans are not omniscient — not all-knowing — and so we can only reflect on things from our tightly delimited and separated worlds of experience. If we live in Florida and there’s a flood that kills 20 people, we shake our fist at the sky and say “How could you let this evil happen? 20 people died!” But what if the consequence of preventing that flood would have meant a drought in Ethiopia that killed hundreds? And what if the consequences of preventing both would have resulted in a war in Ghana that killed tens of thousands? and what if the consequences of preventing all three would be a plague that ravaged Asia and killed millions? And what if preventing all four entailed some subtle change that would make life more or less impossible on this planet? We already see this effect from our own short-sighted efforts: our hunger for mechanical and electrical power has polluted the atmosphere in ways that are driving up global temperatures, risking any number of world-wide catastrophes and extinctions. A God is by definition not short-sighted — s’he is omniscient — and so s’he will have a very broad and clear view on which path is best to take. But still, s’he can’t easily take all paths.
Of course, I suppose we could imagine a world in which a God constantly intervened to prevent all badness to everyone. It would be a world of constant miracles in which there was no consistency or predictability; where natural laws changed from moment to moment and person to person in order to protect everyone; where no one ever really got to make any choices for themselves, because God was always redirecting things to keep them safe and happy. It would be like living in a universe run by an all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-meddling (and all-stereotypical, apologies) Jewish mother. How horrible would that be?
We lack the knowledge to evaluate the morality of natural events, because we cannot see what a God might see. We should focus on the morality of our own acts.
The paradox exists only if God exists, therefore I must conclude that he doesn’t. If He can create Jesus perfect in every way, then he can create everybody perfect in every way. That is not turning right and left at the same time. The idea that he has created the planet such that He has to balance the death of 20 by flood in Florida against hundreds by famine in Ethopia is about as fatuous as you can get. All the arguments in favour of God’s “mysterious ways” in allowing Evil boil down to attempts to justify the unjustifiable. So let me ask a question about the existence of Evil – who benefits from it?
i'm glad i'm thick--or i might have tried to understand all the foregoing.
Dr Who - Nobody is suggesting that an omnipotent god should be able to do things that are logically impossible. You are inventing a straw man because theism is destroyed by its own internal contradictions.
The god who created a planet that is perfectly designed to maximise the suffering of conscious creatures is either useless or evil.
Occam's razor suggests he is simply a figment of human imagination.
The main flaw in the Epicurean paradox, as I see it, is that it makes a semantic error. It assumes that if a thing has omnipotence — the ability to do anything— then that thing is then capable of doing everything simultaneously. It reduces to the sillier and more obvious question: “If God can go left and right, why can’t s’he do both?”
The claim is that god is all powerful and all knowing, being able to see the future. If you are all knowing, you can see what is going to happen and use your all-power to prevent it or change course.
There is no scenario that you can possibly come up with where something couldn't be avoided or prevented if someone really is all powerful and all knowing. So the fact that not just one, but millions upon millions of bad scenarios have actually happened means logically that the first claims are false.
It's simple logic, it's a mountain of evidence that the claims are false, but still people insist on persisting with them.
I take that as evidence of their stupidity. I guess god made them that way - he is an incompetent and unreliable botch-it-all cowboy builder after all though, there's evidence of that a-plenty.
Yes the all powerful, all loving heavenly father,jehober, cares for his earthly children soooooooooooooooooo much that he has allowed billions of his children to suffer horribly through out the millenniums just to prove a point! Who the fuck in their right mind could possibly believe that?
just saying!
With Doctor Who`s reasoning there could never be a Paradise Earth filled with perfect human beings ,his/her arguments refute such a possibility .
People to whom God exists upon reason had no experience with God. All they ever had was knowledge and faith in men
Ah the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. I was waiting for that.
Every cult dismissing their 'apostates' as never being genuine members.
Joan - You are no less a cult member than any JW.
