- cross-posted to:
- atheistmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- atheistmemes@lemmy.world
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One of my favourite discussions of the problem of evil is the chapter below. It’s a discussion between two brothers regarding God and suffering in the world if the end result is eternal paradise. TW: child abuse, suffering and death. Children are used in the argument specifically because they don’t deserve suffering, they are innocent according to Dostoyevsky (I easily agree).
It’s heavy but worth the read imo, and not unnecessarily graphic.
Here’s your answer.
The simple solution is that there is no “evil.”
I like the story The Egg by Andy Weir. It gives an example of that idea.
Alan Watts also talks a lot about that sort of thing.
You remind me of my wife.
When we met, she introduced me to lots of short stories that made me reconsider my perspective on things. This was one of them. She still makes me reconsider my convictions whether I want to or not. I sure do love her for that.
Can you share some of the others?
Sure, but I’m not sure I remember many offhand and some have become popular since then so you may have already read them.
Two that come to mind:
- They’re Made Out of Meat by Terry Bison
- When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory Doctorow
edit: another one that came to mind, though my wife didn’t introduce me to this one, was ~~All You Zombies~~ by Robert Heinlein. I think that one has a movie adaptation called … Predestination maybe?
One my wife did recommend to me, though I found it less impactful than she did, was [https://ia801904.us.archive.org/35/items/the-jaunt-stephen-king/The Jaunt - Stephen King.pdf](The Jaunt) by Stephen King.
Also, though I don’t recall if I ever ended up reading it, she really liked All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury.
edit 2: Not sure why the Stephen King link isn’t working. The % maybe?
edit 3: Replaced all instances of
%20with a space. Link still didn’t work on my client. If it doesn’t work on yours, I’m afraid you’ll have to search for the story or manually copy the URL… Sorry.I would like a list of some as well!
Happy to share the ones I remember offhand, see above in the thread.
thank you! the ones I’ve read so far are awesome, I appreciate you sharing :)
My pleasure, happy I could spread the joy!
No one can convince me that abuse is not evil. Is it common? Banal? Sure. Is it good? No. Never. Causing truama is evil. I don’t think there’s a valid argument that it isn’t.
I do love that concept. I don’t think it removes evil, just shifts its perspective
Nice premise but I can’t stop giggling that the universe created for the child to mature has to be hellscape for parent, for all those instances of the same talks they will be having util that day (finally) comes.
I learned fairly early even as I was in Sunday school that I’m a better, more moral person than god. And I’m just a flawed person. So what use is such a god to me or anyone?
You don’t know that. You haven’t been exposed to the same power that God has. You think deleting the toilets of your Sims is funny at the human level because the Sims don’t experience life the way we do. Imagine that scaled 1000x up.
Ask yourself: would you delete the toilet of every man, woman, and child on Earth just for giggles? Based on my past actions in videogames, I know I would.
The continuing existence of my toilet is proof that I know that God is a better person than me.Not that god is real, cause he isn’t. But I always found him to be an abusive, gaslighting piece of shit. Imagine telling your kids “I love you more than anything, I created you in my image. I want you to be happy and loved… But if you don’t accept my love, I’m going to murder you and torture you with fire for all eternity… But I love you!”
Which god was he talking about anyway ? They had thousands of the fuckers at the time.
This was a guy who assumed the existence of Platonic solids. He clearly had a streak of monotheism in him.
Disgusting. I hope they threw him off a cliff.
A more general tri-omni god
If anyone actually cares, this is the muslim answer to how a good God can allow evil and why humanity was created with all its flaws
It’s an important question and worth taking the time to watch the video
If this were multiple choice, then I would go with #2.
Able and willing are fine and dandy until you have free will to deal with. You can tell people the right way to be all day, but in the end you gotta come down and throw some bitches around like rag dolls. We all assume god has the ability to do whatever they want, but we never think they have rules they are forced to exist by. Rules that keep the very fabric of existence from unraveling. In short, if god is capable of being omnipresent, and omnipotent, then our ability to express free will is in danger because they could just force us to be whomever they choose, with how things are setup it makes a lot more sense gods a smoker, drinker, pissed off, and being forced to fix this shit manually while a ton of shit heads keep trying to force everything in the wrong direction. Gods an admin in a free will zone, and has specific abilities they can rely on to resolve issues, but it can take time like cleaning up the streets of rancid goulash vendors. But really, that implies we are all just visiting a zone, and once we leave it gods not god, just an admin in a zone we are no longer a part of.
Safety is that which protects but does not bind
Tyranny is that which binds but does not protect
Assuming Christianity and that the lore was real there’s more fundamental questions.
Can you perceive the universe accurately and fully? If good and evil exist, are you accurately observing them?
If this world is like an illusion and eternity will be in heaven or hell, what does it mean to do good or evil here on earth? You commit evil and it will propel you towards hell, the"real", while the people who suffer from your evil fare better here in the “illusion.” It’s like evil is when someone kills their own soul, and has less to do with the literal consequences here in this universe.
Related the the first question, what about the fact that their god is literally defined as good and is essentially an Eldritch being that exists within the very unfolding of history itself? Stepping into this lore and trying to trap this thing with a simple, elegant rhetorical cage is like… trying to catch Cthulhu with a cage.
Well the theological explanation is that what we consider evil or suffering is just a necessary function of God’s world.
Would a world truly without any sort of hardship or strife be worth living in?
Isn’t what you described heaven?
This is fantastic, I’ve never seen this response to that question.
My personal faith involves Alan Watts’ thought experiment on God.
God made heaven, had everything, and it got boring. So God made a new adventure where god is challenged, but they always succeed. But this too became boring.
So God, with infinite power, imagined a world where they forgot they were god. They didn’t know what would happen next.
And that is the adventure you and I live in now. Eventually, we’ll get back to heaven / nirvana / reconciliation with God, and then go on another adventure.
Yes, and it can be argued that God makes us live an earthly life before we go to heaven for exactly the purpose of understand strife and hardship so we can understand and appreciate heaven.
I should say I’m not religious nor am I anything close to an expert on theology.
Makes perfect sense. I make my kids sleep outside 2 days a week so they can appreciate the warm home I provide them
Evil doesn’t exist so clearly you are an excellent parent
Do you give your kids everything they ever want? Do you never have to force your kids into doing things they don’t like, such as long journeys or school or brushing their teeth?
It can also be argued that bronze age peasants made this shit up because they were afraid of thunderstorms
Not that any discussion of theology makes any logical sense, but then why did angels get a pass? They have free will, they do not suffer or have evil and they live for eternity in heaven. Are they somehow… deficient because they didn’t get a turn on a hellish Earth? Did God figure out he made a mistake doing it that way and switch to the Crucible Version? Oh, there’s that pesky lack of omnipotence again.
Found the ceo
Well that’s just because God works in mysterious ways you lil silly Billy.
If you guys pray to me, I promise to notice you and pay attention. Which is more than you can say for any god.
(You have to do it out loud and in front of me though.)
Kneeling bags my nylons.
