From: hiddenpaw	Date: November 9th, 2004 09:08 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Either God is evil or it does not exist."

Or god is basicly good but not perfect.
After all to say God is evil is as poor a statement as god is good.
(He could of course be totaly evil but really incompitent.)

	From: vexen	Date: November 10th, 2004 12:27 pm (UTC)		(Link)

That's a perfectly reasonable conclusion, too. An imperfect God is beyond the scope of anything I write - I stick to the Greek tri-omni God, or the Pantheist omnipresent impersonal God, it gets too confusing and pagan and I can't figure out the logic (or need) for imperfect gods.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/opengod.html discusses a form of God that is not tri-omni under Greg Boyd, a Christian evangelist with interesting views.

	From: hiddenpaw	Date: November 10th, 2004 09:20 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I can't see how God could be anything other than imperfect. unless one assumes he was not responsible for the creation of pretty much anything. After all most things are imperfect and it's not really possible for a perfect being to create anything imperffect as that would be an imperfect act.

which unless you work purely from the possition that god was not responsible for much in the way of creation means that you really have to start concidering god as imperfect. Of course feel free to assume god was not responsible for creation in the first place.

	From: vexen	Date: November 15th, 2004 08:27 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Agreed, that if there is a need for a god as part of the natural rules of the universe, that god would have had to have been imperfect. Or indeed if the rules of the universe themselves were created by a god, that god is evidently imperfect.

But, why would we assume that the current state of affairs isn't what God wants? Without assumption, God is morally neutral (not concerned with suffering) or evil, but if we assume God is good (although on what grounds we'd make that assumption I do not know), then god would evidently have to be imperfect.

	From: hiddenpaw	Date: November 17th, 2004 08:30 am (UTC)		(Link)

If you accept that god is not perffect then I would have to agree that there is no way of knowing weather God is good, evil, somewhere in between or genrally appathetic.
If god is imperffect then the state of the world dose not have to be a mirror of his true state in that reguard so a good god could proside over a totaly evil world and visa versa. Good is also of course subjective dependant on your moral code.

	From: vexen	Date: November 18th, 2004 07:27 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Moral code and species! What is good for us is bad for others... for example, weed killer is good for one plant for bad for another, antibiotics are good for humans but bad for bacteria etc, clearly if there is a god it has created a *system* where no objective good is possible... why would a good God create nature in such a self-perpetuated mode of violence that life has to feed on life in order to live?

This is on argument on http://www.dpjs.co.uk/god.html where I make the counter-argument that the evidence is that god is evil, not merely neutral and definately not good (assuming that a god exists, anyway, without a god the good/evil problem doesn't exist)

	From: hiddenpaw	Date: November 18th, 2004 09:47 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Of course once you entre in to the relm of moral codes being subjective nothing is evil except in the eyes of other things unless it wants it's self to be evil. God's moral code may include some kind of thing about beings consuming other beings in some kind of circular motion as being a good thing. This isn't entierly rediculus either prehaps not wanting other things to eat you is selfish and therefor evil. It gives one of the many purpouses to life (Suvival). maybe it's only humans who think in a manor abstract enough to really care about suvival at more than an instinctive level (Although I think that's where we care about it most). A good god may want to maximise the number of people who are happy or at the least content, but you have to look at this over the whole of history (Prehaps even here and in the here-after). That would make it hard to see weather god is aiming for good or bad over all due to our narrow vison in terms of the whole of creation over the whole of forever. In short it's probably beyond us to know.

But as an agnostic I have no trouble saying all religon is a matter of best guesses.

From: nuitana	Date: November 9th, 2004 10:16 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Nothing, including God, is all-good. The spiritual realm/God encompasses all. Part of an individual's "coming into being" involves discerning good and evil for himself and gaining understanding of those scales, and becoming firmly cognizant of who he is and what he stands for.

	From: vexen	Date: November 10th, 2004 12:24 pm (UTC)		(Link)

What is "coming into being", why would you want to do that, and why do we need to? Seems like quite a random, superfluous idea to me.

Being able to be cognizant of your own individuality does not logically require God to have created evil, as far as I can tell.

The theodicies listed are related to an all-powerful all-good God, if you believe in a god that isn't all-good then the chances are the problem of evil doesn't cause contradictions for you.

See The Open View of God, for a similar "imperfect" God that doesn't suffer from the contradiction of the existence of evil:
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/opengod.html

I've updated the page I posted to include an introduction to the problem of evil, just to set the context a bit better.

From: nuitana	Date: November 10th, 2004 03:55 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I was using coming into being to mean realizing and defining ourselves through our chosen beliefs and behavior. I think we'd want to because, for me at least, having no personal system means there is no stand taken on anything.

I don't think of God as creating either suffering or evil. I don't think of those things as having been created. They seem to be conditions, not creations and I can't seem to reconcile the two in my mind. If suffering and evil are created in any way, maybe they are created as a natural result of human behavior wrongly motivated and chosen - wrongly for the individual in question.

	From: vexen	Date: November 15th, 2004 08:31 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Necessarily the only conditions possible are the ones created by God.

The only possible results on human behaviour are the possible results created by god: all possible actions are those created by God.

Why do you think "coming into being" has to involve good/evil, and not merely the varying scales of good? God, as creator of the rules of the universe, could easily have made it so that "coming into being" only required the experience and choice between lots of various states of goodness and happiness.

"coming into being" doesn't seem to be a good excuse for the creation of evil by God.

From: nuitana	Date: November 15th, 2004 09:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I believe in infinite possibilities. A possibility is a question mark until we make it into a reality. If God defines every possibility (assuming that God is a force apart from us), we are indeed limited.

Also, good and evil don't exist outside of the individual defining it as such.

	From: vexen	Date: November 15th, 2004 08:35 pm (UTC)		(Link)

The problem of evil is one of the major problems that theorists in the existeence of god need to get around in order to justify their position.

Subservience to an evil being makes yourself more evil, even if you believe that being to be good. Subservience to god, who is more likely an evil being than a good one, is too risky and too dodgy. THATS what the problem of evil is. Without a good explanation of why suffering exists, God is a monster.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: November 21st, 2004 03:05 am (UTC)		(Link)

I don't understand why you're immediately saying if there is a god, he must be evil, because you could make the same arguments against an evil god as you are against a good god: if god was evil, why wouldn't the scale be from ridicilously bad to really bad? He must have put the good in the world, too- which an evil god wouldn't have done.

The world is absurd- too absurd for any of the gods that religion offers.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: February 12th, 2006 11:42 am (UTC)		(Link)
Crowd Controler ?

I really cannot believe religion/god is even being discussed by intelligent people.
A comedian who I never liked was being interviewed on TV, out of the blue he said something which changed my opinion of him, he said “ stay clear of religion it’s only a crowd controller “.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: March 23rd, 2006 06:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Re: Crowd Controler ?

OK, so yes religion has been used for horrible purposes, and I do not subscribe to any religion. I am a believer in a just (and that is the KEY word) God, and merciful God. I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, and his crucifiction set us free form our sins and allowed us to have a deeper, more personal relationship with God after the sin of Adam and Eve. So you being another ignorant individual will title me as a member of the Christian religion just because those are my beliefs. The difference between religion and RELATIONSHIP (unto which I subscribe) is that religion is about what you can do for God or your gods, and relationship is about how you can love and walk with God. Just to clarify for you. Oh yeah, and come up with something more intelligent to say next time.

	From: vexen	Date: March 23rd, 2006 06:59 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Crowd Controler ?

Well whether you like it or not, you're a Christian and a part of the Christian religion, and that you call it a "relationship" is entirely up to you, but you can't change the English language just because you don't like the word "religion".

From: (Anonymous)	Date: November 24th, 2004 08:35 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Evil/Good

Here's an answer you will not like, nor understand, HUMAN GOOD, minus God, is SATAN's plan. Satan, like you, desires to abolish all religions, especially Christianity, and establish HUMAN GOOD. You see, Satan's plan/desire is that all humans be good ... MINUS GOD/JESUS. Satan's desire is to establish his own eutopia on earth, which he can rule over ... can't rule over rebellious/bad people, can you? However, he forgets, like himself, all of us humans have an old sin nature we are born with ... we are born to rebel. Too bad for Satan ... he can't fix that "old sin nature/rebellion" problem and neither can ANY HUMAN on this earth now or to come. Only one entity, God, had a solution to it (while here on earth), and that was to accept Jesus as our savior for the payment of our rebellious/sinful nature and turn to God. You see, as a born-again, Bible-believing Christian, I STILL SIN and will continue to do so until I die. HOWEVER, I sin less and desire to sin less as each year that passes in my life. Not by my own doing/desire, but because the Holy Spirit resides in my heart. It's hard to explain to a non-believer. I reali