NonContradiction

Yes, I did. You are right. You caused me to think about something, namely, that sometimes complaint can be a good thing.



Now you are missing the point. God wants three things:

1) For you to experience pain and suffering, whether it appears to be necessary or unnecessary is irrelevant.

2) For you to have patience.

3) For you to be rewarded for your patience.

Your task is to argue that God is evil, if He does exist, for wanting those three things.

Philosoft

It's also contingent on the definitions of "benevolence" or "omnibenevolence" or whatever it is God has, and "omnipotence."
If you stipulate that the world God wants is the best possible world, then the evidential AfE is pretty strong. Your argument seems to be that every instance of suffering is necessary to strengthen some human virtue, but there are many instances of suffering that are apparently useless for this purpose. An omni-God would, at the very least, prevent instances of needless suffering, so an omni-God does not exist. Where is the bias?

Dr Rick

Whose god is this?! It's not the loving God of the Bible.

Very nice; you are correct that the PoE doesn't argue against the existence of a god that, among other things, "wants us to experience pain and suffering." It argues against an omni-god, like the one of the Bible (all-knowing, all loving, and all-powerful), who would want only the best for us, know how to provide us only the best, and have the power to provide us with only the best of all possibilities; you are quite right that the God described here doesn't exist. A god that wants us to experience pain and suffering is not omnibenevolent (all-loving), a god that doesn't want us to experience pain and suffering but can't make us as well as he would like to without pain and suffering is limited and therefore not omnipotent (all-powerful), and a god that doesn't know how to do what he wants isn't omniscient (all-knowing).

A lessor god such as the one you describe as wanting us to suffer could exist, as the PoE says nothing about such a being; it is directed at the concept of a perfect, omni-god letting us suffer in imperfection.

Rick

Philosoft

Ok, but I think your argument just self-destructed.

This appears to be fatal to your assertion that addiction is necessary to prevent us from over-indulging.
And this certainly kills it.

Wiploc

That's not my task.

My task is to point out that that if god were omnipotent, he could give us the reward without the suffering.

And if god didn't want something else more than he wanted us not to suffer, he would give us the reward without the suffering.

My task is easy.

If it were my task to show that god was evil, that would be easy too, so easy as to be trivial. If evil refers to the sources of man's suffering (as in, earthquakes are natural evils and sloth is a moral evil), and if --- as you yourself have it --- god gave us suffering for some purpose of his own, then god is the source of all suffering. He is evil; that's what the word means. Why would you set me such a silly task?
crc

NonContradiction

I was arguing that it's "necessary" for us to experience pain and suffering in order to obtain patience, and that may be true, but I suddenly realized that it doesn't make any difference anyway. The PoE doesn't revolve around what God could have, should have, or would have. The PoE revolves around what God wants.

It's their job to argue that God is evil, assuming that He does exist, for wanting all of the three things that I listed before:

1) God wants us to experience pain and suffering, whether it's necessary or unnecessary.

2) God wants us to have patience.

3) God wants to reward us for our patience.

Perhaps, they could successfully argue that God is evil, assuming that He does exist, if He ONLY wanted (1), but that isn't the case here. The AfE is as bad an argument as many of the arguments for the existence of God, but I don't expect many people to be admitting to that anytime soon.

Dr Rick

Perhaps it would help if you were to explain why a loving god would want us to suffer unnecessarily, and how such a god could still be considered perfect and all-loving?

The PoE is an argument about all the attributes of an omnigod: what fhe wants, what he can do, and what he knows.

We've done our job, you have yet to do yours and defend the concept of a perfect omni-god that is less than perfect and omni.

All we had to do is show that a putative god that can fulfill all three perfect attributes, omnibenevolence, omniscience, and omnipotence, would not make us and the universe the way that he did. A god that wants us to expericence unnecessary suffering fails the first of these.

We don't have to show that "god is evil' as that is not part of the PoE. The PoE does not argue that god is evil; it argues that the existence of evil contradicts the existence of a perfect, omni-god.

NonContradiction

Yes, I can simply reply that your objection is an irrelevant one because the PoE doesn't revolve around could have, should have, or would have. God COULD have prevented pain and suffering if He wanted to make that His highest priority, but He didn't. He COULD have given us the reward, without the suffering, if He wanted to make that His highest priority, but He didn't. Obviously, it's not His highest priority, but so what?



I agree, but you are not proving anything.

It may be obvious to you that God is evil for not preventing pain and suffering, assuming He does exist, but it's not so obvious to me. Your argument isn't very convincing.

Wyz_sub10

If I watch a 15-year old boy beat a 5-year old boy, and do nothing to stop it, although I am capable of doing so, does that constitute evil?

Do you, personally, absolve yourself of any social responsibility because you do not see it obvious that you should harbor any?

I'm guessing you hold your imperfect self and your imperfect neighbours to a higher standard than you hold your supposedly perfect god.

Hawkingfan

Then why isn't there pain and suffering in heaven?

Then why aren't people in hell rewarded for patience?