Zone1 The Problem of Evil

[Votto]

Ecclesiastes 10:2 The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.

Well, I guess that settles that.

 

[Meriweather]

My answer is the Creator is a non-intervening "God". He created life and set the initial conditions and then just let nature take it's course. Simple as that.

From a different perspective: God is far from being 'non-intervening'. There is no evil he cannot overcome. He renews not only the face of the earth, but our life when evil/bad enters in. This new creation takes time, but it does come about.

 

[MarathonMike]

Only of you think he would have been a republican.

Jesus would not have been political at all. Only sanctimonious Democrat supporters would make such a claim.

 

[MarathonMike]

From a different perspective: God is far from being 'non-intervening'. There is no evil he cannot overcome. He renews not only the face of the earth, but our life when evil/bad enters in. This new creation takes time, but it does come about.

My perspective is that God chooses to not intervene so as to not to disturb the natural evolution of his creation.

 

[Votto]

Jesus would not have been political at all. Only sanctimonious Democrat supporters would make such a claim.

He would not be political?

He was not political.

He sought no political orifice, not even to appeal to them.

He knew they only care about dollar signs and power.

 

[Crepitus]

Jesus would not have been political at all. Only sanctimonious Democrat supporters would make such a claim.

YOu kids would have forced him to be a democrat.

An immigrant of color, feeding poor people, healing sick people, preaching peace and unity?

You kids would have said "libtard" and turned your noses up.

 

[Votto]

Theists Don't Explain Anything. It's All "God's Will."

Superior creative minds are the only thing literally "supernatural," because they conquer nature and prevent its disasters. Theists just passively accept it all and do nothing. There's not one evil that geniuses don't have the ability to eventually prevent. All of today's cures could have been invented millennia ago. But supernatural minds have been shackled by jealous believers in superstition.

Currently we have a world government in the World Economic forum and NATO that is 100% secular and preaches the climate cult and new gender theories where they can't tell us what a woman is and that men can get pregnant but insist that children can get their wing wangs surgically removed cuz they should undergo a sex change to match their gender.

Try again.

Or there is Trofim Lysenko in the former USSR that insisted that agriculture was corrupted by capitalism and the West, so he came up with alternative theories to grow food, all of which were wrong.

Trofim Lysenko - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Millions suffered and died of starvation, but Stalin enjoyed the propaganda it provided against the West and continued his policies for about 40 years or so. No one really knows how many millions starved to death, and certainly Stalin did not care. And guess what, they were atheists.

Yay for atheists!

 

[MarathonMike]

YOu kids would have forced him to be a democrat.

An immigrant of color, feeding poor people, healing sick people, preaching peace and unity?

You kids would have said "libtard" and turned your noses up.

As usual, you run away from the nonsensical assertion THAT YOU MADE and start pointing
pointing fingers. SSDD

 

[Meriweather]

My perspective is that God chooses to not intervene so as to not to disturb the natural evolution of his creation.

God's touch is so light, much of the time it goes unnoticed and it takes a sharp eye to even sense it. Perhaps God does take great care that he does not do what might seriously disturb natural evolution.

 

[ding]

Only of you think he would have been a republican.

He was apolitical.

 

[onefour1]

Because He didn't want robots. Even the angels are able to think for themselves.

Why there is evil in the world: Because God is not a tyrant. Whatever he creates he sets free, and so bad things do happen. When tragedy strikes, God also has the power to overcome that tragedy, which brings about good.

I think if God made us perfect like himself from the beginning and still gave us free will, this would not constitute being a robot or God being a tyrant. He would simply be making us like himself and then giving us the same free will that He has. So I don't think this is a good response to the professors idea that if God is all powerful, all knowing and all loving then why didn't he simply create us to be perfect like himself? God certainly has free will and always chooses to do good!

 

[Votto]

He was apolitical.

But that goes against the religion of the day, even in the church you have Left wingers like the Black Liberation Theology that think they need to have the state redistribute wealth as the plan of God to the poor.

Leftism is the most successful religion of our day.

Obama was one of those.

 

[Votto]

I think if God made us perfect like himself from the beginning and still gave us free will, this would not constitute being a robot or God being a tyrant. He would simply be making us like himself and then giving us the same free will that He has. So I don't think this is a good response to the professors idea that if God is all powerful, all knowing and all loving then why didn't he simply create us to be perfect like himself? God certain has free will and always chooses to do good!

The notion that God is love is the key

What is love? Love is the ability to accept or reject the other party, or it is not really a loving relationship.

And so it goes, man had the ability to reject God, which he did. But once you reject the source of all life and love, what are you then embracing?

Death and suffering is all that is left to embrace.

Imagine, if you will, a God that can control literally everything and anything. What interest would you have in creation? It would be like playing tic tac toe with yourself.

However, if you are capable of anything, and you choose to surrender a very small sliver of your power to human will, would it not hold your entire attention?

 

[MarathonMike]

He would not be political?

He was not political.

He sought no political orifice, not even to appeal to them.

He knew they only care about dollar signs and power.

I said it that way because pompous Democrats love to claim that Jesus WOULD HAVE been a Democrat. I don't believe Jesus would have been a fan of fetal murder.

 

[ding]

But that goes against the religion of the day, even in the church you have Left wingers like the Black Liberation Theology that think they need to have the state redistribute wealth as the plan of God to the poor.

Leftism is the most successful religion of our day.

Obama was one of those.

There's always been a cosmic battle between socialism and free market. So sure, but Jesus was not political. His message was a personal message, not a societal message.

 

[Votto]

There's always been a cosmic battle between socialism and free market. So sure, but Jesus was not political. His message was a personal message, not a societal message.

His message encompassed all of human endeavor, granted, he was not as myopic as caring about election results like us mere mortals, and as I have said, his kingdom is not of this world, as it is fallen and corrupt and temporal.

We see God raising nations and destroying them in the OT, so he certainly has an interest in the temporal, but that is not his focus.

As a rule, Leftists try to argue all the time against the notion of free will. Do they do so understanding that free will is the pillar of the Biblical faith? Dunno, maybe it is just instinctive based upon the spiritual forces that unknowingly drive them. At the end of the day, the Left thinks that man need not be accountable for anything, just like Hunter Biden, unless you are Trump or support him or don't pay your taxes.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Jesus believes in royalty, kings, kingdoms, walls, and never attempted to redistribute anyone's wealth. He never took from the rich to give to the poor, and said the poor would always be with us.

When children of God were being considered, God turned to someone and said:
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

We also share the same attributes and emotions that are in Heaven. So tell me what happens to people when they become the star of the show e.g. is there much vanity and jealousy in Hollywood?
Lucifer was the star of the show. He was beautiful and brilliant and he became vain and jealous.
And is why Jesus was this:
Isaiah 53:2 He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.

 

[onefour1]

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, our answer to the "Problem of Evil" is first answered by the the following latter day verse:

Doctrine and Covenants 93:29
29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

This verse tells us two things. First it tells us that God is not all powerful in that He can do anything imaginable. This verse tells us something that not even God can do. He cannot create intelligence. We believe that God is capable of doing all that is possible. However, there are eternal impossibilities and this revelation tells us so. Mere mortals are not even capable of imagining all that is possible in this vast universe. However, God knows all things and has all power in that he can do all things that are possible. Second, we learn from this verse we learn that the intelligence of all things can never be created. In other words, we believe that our intelligence is self-existing. Yes, we believe that a part of all living things that have intelligence have always existed as intelligence.

Now if God could not create our intelligence, it goes without saying that he could not create our intelligence to be perfect. Thus we are as we have always existed. However, we are subject to progression and gaining more knowledge and intelligence. So God, knowing that he could not create us to be perfect as He is, came up with another way for us to become more like Himself through learning to progress through the process of experiencing a temporary mortal life of good and evil using our own free will and choice. Free will is critical to becoming a good being. If we did not learn to choose good over evil of our own free will would we really become good beings in and of ourselves? No! Lucifer's plan in the premortal world of spirits was to force mankind to do good and in this way he supposed to save all mankind. God rejected this plan because if mankind does not choose good over evil of his own free will, then mankind is not really becoming a good being in and of himself. Free will is critical for mankind to become a truly good being. By choosing good over evil and loving goodness more than evil we become more like God and become good beings in and of ourselves. So basically, we are sent to this temporary mortal world of good and evil to learn to choose good over evil of our own free will and choice. By going through this experience of mortal life we can become more perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect. Thus the purpose of having evil in the world is learn that it is bad and that goodness is good and that we should love good over evil. Since free will is critical, God knows that not all mankind will choose good over evil but that some will choose evil over good.

Not being made perfect and being in an imperfect state, God knew that we would make mistakes and thus created a way for us to repent and find forgiveness of sin and we struggle to become good beings. He thus provided us with his atoning sacrifice so that we could have many chances to overcome evil and choose good over evil and become good beings. The drawback is that not all of us take advantage of this wonderful gift of God and repent and seek forgiveness but go on committing evil and even loving it. This is the belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our answer to the problem of evil.

 

[Clyde 154]

When I was in college and took a philosophy of religion course, I was presented with the "problem of evil" paradox that has been made in the philosophies of religion. It goes something like this:

If God is an all powerful, all knowing, and an all loving being, then why is there evil in the world?

In other words, if God is all powerful, He would have the power to not allow evil in the world. If God is all knowing, He would have the know how to stop evil from being in the world. And, if God is an all loving and benevolent God surely He would not allow evil into the world! So, since there is evil in the world, then God cannot exist.

This is how the problem of evil was presented to me in my philosophy of religion course. After studying this "problem of evil" for several years upon hearing it, I finally came up with my LDS response to why there is evil in the world and why God allows it. I am curious as to how others answer this philosophical issue. So I ask all God fearing believers, how would you respond to this?

Simple: The answer is found in the Word of God. Its men that choose to do evil through the gift of Free Will. The reason for the reboot with the great flood. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." -- Genesis 6:5. God was repentant (sorry) that He had created man on the earth.....God was grieved in His heart......" vs .6:6

If free will did not exist and God controlled all aspects of His creation void of free will.........God could not have been sorry with regret. God has no respect of person (Acts 10:34-35).....God creates then allows the very laws of Physics (created by Him) to run their natural course. There is no promise of freedom from tribulation.....problems are encountered by all living human beings. Innocent and guilty alike are governed by the same laws of nature. Even the angels of heaven were created with FREE WILL. Sin is committed via FREE WILL......and the angels have the free will to sin (2 Peter 2:4) Christians are guaranteed nothing extra in this physical realm of reality. People suffer with illness, accidents, murder.....etc., Children die every day without evil entering the equation, innocent people die every day through no fault of their own, some are murdered due the evil thoughts and actions of others.

If you encounter illness/sickness.........pray to God to guide your path to find the most qualified Physician possible to help you. God always answers prayer........some people can't comprehend the difference between what they WANT and WHAT they need.

Is God to blame when you spend your entire life smoking, drinking, driving with rage....etc., overeating.....then when you are lying on your death bed........you want to blame God for your own free will actions? Some people attempt to blame God for natural disasters.......such as living on a hurricane coast and then declare that God is to blame because you have to rebuild time and time again........all to keep up with the Jones'?

One of the most valuable answers to a prayer is sometimes.............NO

God would have all men saved via coming to the knowledge of the truth (the gospel truth) -- 2 Tim. 2:4-6.....salvation is a choice not made by God but by men, if you love God you will obey His advise for living (John 14:23) and leave this world a better place than the world you were born into.

Truth: Salvation comes to the Spirit of Man (which is made in the image of God) at the end of the race called life -- Phil. 3:14-16....the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom not a physical kingdom......the kingdom of God is located IN YOUR HEART (Luke 17:21) And your heart will bring you PEACE if you allow the advise of the Holy Spirit (that inspired All Scripture -- 2 Tim. 3:16-17) to guide your steps.............because Man is not capable of guiding His own steps in a righteous manner it takes God (Jer. 10:23)

 

[ninja007]

Though it is true that in the Garden of Eden the lamb would lie down with the lion but then Adam and Eve transgressed the command to not partake of the forbidden fruit and thus death, suffering, and evil began in the world. My professor would argue, "Why didn't God, who is all powerful, all knowing, and an all loving God simply make man perfect like Himself and he could have all the free will and yet make perfect decisions and never choose evil and never bring evil into the world?"

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?