What is a christian's response?
 Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
 Nothing Ever Happens Shirt $21.68 |
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
Epicurean Paradox
What is a christian's response?
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
Nothing Ever Happens Shirt $21.68 |
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
FREE
Did he actually say this?
the attestation is pretty late, but it definitely was associated with epicurean philosophy.
No, it was Hegel.
God lives in the paradoxes our minds can't wrap around. He can be all-loving and all-hating at the same time, he can be hot and cold at the same time, he can be microscopic and the size of the universe at the same time. Trying to put human limitations on him or judge him by our standards is like us listening to what an ant, or even better, the microcellular organisms that live on an ant have to say about the world. I'm not a christian but Yahweh pretty much says as much in the Book of Job.
>A world containing creatures that are significantly free is better than a world containing no free creatures
Free will does not exist but even if it did there is no reason why this would be true, rendering its "point" moot.
>If significantly free creatures were caused to do only what is right, they would not be free
This is very controversial. Why should I accept this?
You don't have to, that's how defenses work. If it's at all possible that god could prefer creaturely freedom over an absence of unrighteousness then the so called paradox fails.
Yeah, but why should I think that incompatibilism is possible? I don't see how the answer to this question is going to differ between possible worlds.
I don't need to demonstrate incompatibilism is possible
In all likelihood God hates you so you better just accept it.
>Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
wtf i love yahweh now
Not wasting time with fools who keep reposting the same thread every day and ape out when answered.
Then just repost the same response in every thread, or do you not have that response?
That would be fruitless. Haters of God will continue to hate God regardless of what anyone posts in this thread.
So you have no argument then?
This, epicfedoras gets refuted every time and they just keep resposting it
Epicurus is right if death is the end, what he considers evil or good is only valid if death is the end.
is it recycling day again? I thought sanitation workers got the 4th off too.
>Evil exists
no one has ever proved this without resorting to either subjective opinion or a priori assumption that God in fact exists and is ipso facto good
Do you deny that evil exists?
Yes.
So there is nothing wrong with torturing babies for fun?
I think that is wrong as does essentially everyone but that does not make it "objectively" wrong. Even if God did exist there would be no reason to determine that his moral judgments are objectively correct just because an all-powerful being said so.
>I think that is wrong as does essentially everyone but that does not make it "objectively" wrong.
So, it's just your opinion.
In a sense but there is good reason to enforce that judgment with laws. How would a God change this situation?
>In a sense but there is good reason to enforce that judgment with laws
Can you back up that value judgment with objective arguments?
There is no need for an "objective" argument. Interestingly you have twice not taken up the opportunity to explain how God's existence would make morality objective...
God's existence, assuming that he exists, would necessarily define objective morality by the fact that he created reality itself. All definitions would naturally proceed from the consciousness that invented the concepts thereof. Such is the nature of the Aristotelian God.
People can come up with their own moral systems. God could enforce his own system but that would not make it objective because other minds could dispute it and propose alternatives.
I have no clue where you're getting this from, but Aristotle was obviously not a divine command theorist.
For the sake of argument, let's suppose that I do in fact deny that evil exists. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that "evil" is defined by negation, i.e. it is not good, much the same as we define dark by the absence of light or cold by the absence of heat. By this definition, we must therefore conceive of good, but how do we define "good" objectively? Only by the metric of the supreme good that is responsible for all creation, i.e. God. Only the creator of the universe and everything in it can be used as a definition of goodness, by whose very act of creation invented the very concept of "good". Thus, assuming that God exists (in the Aristotelian sense), which is a premise a priori assumed by the Epicurean paradox, and God necessarily being good, this precludes any of the conclusions derived from Epicurus. Since God is, by definition, good, this means he isn't responsible for any "evil" thing happening, and you thus cede the argument to the Free-Will crowd.
Until you can find a detailed and objective definition of "evil" that does not hinge upon being the opposite of good/God, the Epicurean argument is self-refuting, and thus I must assume that evil does not exist.
This argument does not say that torturing babies for fun is evil, but "wrong", and those are two very different things. I believe it is wrong to do so, as a subjective, personal definition, but is the act of torturing babies for fun evil in and of itself? What if the baby deserved it? What if the torture leads to the improvement of the baby's future development? As you said, if the experience is subjectively fun for me, isn't that, as the adherents of Jeremy Bentham's concept of utilitarianism define "happiness", the highest good? For we must assume you are a utilitarian if you perceive "evil" as "things that cause pain", in the argument of the Epicurean paradox.
The absence of good is evil. God is the standard of good but he's absent because he's still recovering from that barrage of iron chariots. It's all just neoplatonics which you can't divorce from Christianity especially if you're a trinitarian
All you need to do is ignore Christians here, Dirk especially, because unlike the early theologians they have no understanding of platonic philosophy that makes up the metaphysics and ethics of its religion. They just think they need the bible because they're dogmatic low iq trash. Don't expect them to read up on Epicureanism to better understand the paradox.
*evil is the absence of good
It's an inherent flaw to personify and project human morality onto a supreme being. What is love and justice to an everlasting being is vastly different than someone who will live eighty years.
>evil exists
no
yes
The issue is the box
>Can God create a universe with free will but no evil? No
>Then God is not all powerful
It depends on your definition of all powerful. If by all powerful you mean God can do impossible, logically contradictory things, then God is not all powerful.
But that's a stupid way of defining omnipotence. In Eastern Orthodoxy we believe that Logic/Logos, is uncreated and and eternal. So the option of being contradictory simply does not exist. It's like saying can God oeoeoeoeo. It means nothing. It's a non-possibility. Since there was never a time where Logic did not exist and logically contradictory things were a possibility.
In other words, we define omnipotence as God being able to do all possible things. i.e. all things that do not contradict His Being/Essence.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Logos
So God can be all powerful and all good, and permit evil. Keep in mind, evil is not created, it is simply a lack of goodness that we freely choose for ourselves. Hell and Heaven are the same, the only difference is our subjective eperience. In Heaven, saints experience God from an enlightened and receptive state, in hell, God is experienced from a place of denial, rejection and hatred. It's like going on a fun bumpy ride without putting your seatbelt on, you're gonna suffer and hurt yourself instead of enjoying the experience. In other words, it all falls down on what we choose. God does not impose anything on us. We are highly privileged.
So if evil is something that is logically engrained into the universe, why not create a universe which permits the logical inconsistency of evil, or to force god's goodness upon us, where the denial of god is functionally impossible ie a universe where you are forced to put on the seatbelt and enjoy the ride
Surely an all powerful all knowing loving omnipotent being can and should do that
> a universe where you are forced to put on the seatbelt and enjoy the ride
>Surely an all powerful all knowing loving omnipotent being can and should do that
I find the irony of an Epicurean advocating for absolute irrevocable enslavement and eradication of identity and free-will as an innate "good" that God ought to do, while at the same time arguing that the existence of bad things like slavery and torture and disease happening in the real world is proof of the nonexistence of God, of immense hilarity, but not at all unexpected.
Are you implying that people wouldn't be happy if we didn't have free will to make evil decisions? Isn't that just what heaven is supposed to be?
All I'm saying is that god isn't loving to put heaven in the sky rather than making it here earth
You have an extremely warped and infantile view of heaven.
Then enlighten me
it's not my job to quote the bible at you
moral dichotomy is the issue, not whether or not God is all powerful (he is)
It is stated in the Bible that God created evil.
>Evil exists
No