lulay

all depends on how you ASK a question. if you posit the idea of a biblical god' with all the trimmings, and ask 'why evil' etc, then all your energy of inquiry is taken up by the premise you are inquiring with. I.e., ALL the indoctrinated imagery etc of "God"
part of which being "he" is "all-good"......Hence the need for the VERy conundrum...'errrr, how could goody two shoes allow bad....em??

So, why not then think about DEPTH. That in order for life to be truly rounded there NEEDS to be the free will for evil. the potential for evil. for if there wasn't it wouldn't have any potential depth

this is not to say i love evil. but the UNDETANDING OF this is the resolving of it. for if you fear Depth and put all your hopes in some superficial world of pure goodness, then you are really wanting a static 2 d world. a world only found in ideolgies which separate 'good' from 'evil'

think about how many people who have worshipped so-called 'good' have DONE 'evil',,,,think of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust....etc etc., Even though we can see that behaviour was evil, the ones doing it thought it was good. they hadn't explored the depth of life is why

so pinning your hopes on some "God" who will say 'no more evil' doesn't make any sense

ten to the eleventh

Yeah, I figured you would appreciate that one. Hmmm, 4:30 a.m. can't sleep thought... Is all "evil," so-called, a category of person to person interaction? Is there any evil that falls outside of that? If we call volcano eruptions, hurricanes, pestilence, and disease, calamity, does that only leave social "wrongs?"

Of course, as a "personal God," Jehovah counts as one person who can wrong another. Being an absolute authority and rule-maker wouldn't change that. If God creates a nasty little parasite (theistic evolutionists are given an out on this one) has He not done evil? Before you answer, you may want to give this page a good read:

http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/d...isms/index.htm

And no responding to the one about lions.

ten to the eleventh

Somewhere therein lies an old question that atheists ask Christians: If free will necessarily results in evil, won't the citizens of Heaven also sin? Eventually, won't they all be in Hell? And if the free will in Heaven would not produce evil, why must the free will on Earth produce it?

jdlongmire

http://www.rmiweb.org/other/problemevil.pdf

This article addresses the problem of evil and free will. I have not read it in depth and the author seems to be a bit...haughty?...but I think it is on track from a Reformed position. I will try and summarize later, if I have the time. This is a crazy week!

jdlongmire

St. Augustine had something to say about the "states of man", too...

Article is in here

Dean Anderson

Allow me to summarise it for you...




1) There is no such thing as free will.

2) There is no such thing as objective morality. "Good" is simply a subjective "What God does".

3) Because God does want not stop Evil and suffering, "Good" therefore, by definition, does not want to stop Evil.

4) Anyone who uses a different definition of "Good" to me (for example one that would want to stop Evil) is not using God's definition and therefore their arguments can be summarily ignored.

5) TAG! TAG! TAG! Everyone else's worldviews are irrelevant!

6) Oh - and by the way - atheists are "foolish" and display "minimal levels of judgement and intelligence".




I hope you weren't relying on this piece of tripe to refute anything...

lulay

usually when one thinks of evil you tend to think of it in a certain way.......the child murderer....bomber......tyrant...rapist, etc

but what about so-called 'good' intentions being evil-denied, or ignored?

i've already mentioned the Crusades, Inquisition, Holocaust.......What about the history of psychiatry, and all the hoor that's gone on there?

of parents putting their childen on drugs so as to fit in school?

school!!!

this is what i mean by the concept of 'goodness'..it is the most evil thing left unexplored

LP675

Probably. But if humans are just clever mammals why cant other animals be involved in morality too? If they can, (and it doesn’t really seem fair if they can’t), you missed out ‘person to animal’, ‘animal to person’ and ‘animal to animal’ interaction (oh wait, maybe animals can be ‘persons’ too. And actually I suppose ‘animal to animal’ would cover it all).
I don't know if I can help you there becaues I don’t know what your system of morality entails. Seems all fairly arbitrary to me, but whatever rings your bell . Remember we have already previously established that I’m not the one who has to struggle to concoct a basis for morality (Relax, I’m just messing with you ).
I totally agree. In theory.
Funny you should mention that. I was going to deliver a snide little ‘hit and run’ attack against ZooMom for saying the following (I thought the better of it when I saw poor ZooMom had a migraine):
I would have rambled on to the effect: “Yes Nature is so beautiful, just the way God designed it! The Box jelly fish design for example is wonderful! What delightful and beautifully designed poison stingers which so efficiently inflict excruciating paralysis!�

But that site link you posted does it much better.
I love well written satire:
I have to say I am a little confused as to why you think “theistic evolutionists are given an out on this one�, because it seems to me they are pretty stuffed, and YEC’s have the ‘out’. I didn’t read the article too closely, it was a little gross.

I think the argument against theistic evolution would run something like this (Because only in this system does God actually create "a nasty little parasite�) :
“If God is responsible for creation, i.e. he created through evolution, then it seems like creation is a bit of a travesty. What a cruel and inefficient means of creation! Why did he design them so vicious and horrible? Why not instantaneously create a pleasant state of existence, with nice and friendly animals, instead of billions of years of futile bloodshed, pain and struggle?"

The YEC position is God did quickly and efficiently create a pleasant state of existence, but the ‘curse’ (a result of the fall), wreaked terrible havoc on the earth. The earth as we see it is NOT ‘beautiful and as God designed it’. It has horribly mutated. (For example I distinctly remember Ken Ham cracking a joke regarding adding a verse to the well known hymn “all things bright and beautiful�, along the lines of “all things marred and mutated�.)

I have a few additional thoughts, however I think I will refrain from further comment on this topic in this post lest someone report it over in E/C.

LP675

Stupid Ritalin and dexamphetamine ! That stuff is nasty gear.

lulay

or "fall" is an invention of man.......with the intention of denigrating Nature as Goddess

so yo could then wonder, 'whence cometh this evil intention of the male to DO this?" ..is that NOt natrual that such free will which promotes division and evil is part of things?"......well exactly....like said, REALITy is rounded depth.....think of depthlessness. so in this reality anything is permitted. BUT the understanding OF this is the doing awy of the exploitating of it

so, did the men who believed in and wrote the divisive dominating patriarchal myths not KNOW depth? seeing they were attempting to coopt previous understanding of Depth?