God & The Problem of Evil

Yes. And just this is what he can and will never try to do - for several anti-theistic reasons he has. He is not able to admit that he is biased. Otherwise he would accept at least stringent definitions. His distinction between “relative perfection” and “aboslute perfection” is nonsense. Something or someone is either perfect or not. Perfection is not relocatable and not gradable, not improvable!

The perspective of those who wrote the Old Testament obviously required an evil God.

Hello Prismatic
I understand your argument. I simply don’t accept the premises, which is why I am arguing against the premises of your argument before even addressing the soundness of your argument, because when it comes to the problem of evil it is often human hubris that leads the way, man reducing everything to an extension of himself. With that in mind (and if you want to find Biblical precedence, use Romans), lets look at the following:

Lets imagine having this argument when the reality of the person in question is not in doubt.
1- Omar MUST be absolutely perfect-- (it says so in my resume?)
2- So that means that he MUST be good. (good at what precisely?)
3- According to our own laws of reason, Omar cannot be perfect at everything, if they are opposites. (I get pissed off from time to time; am I not free to do so?)
4- If there is any flaw then how can he be perfect. (Look man all I said on my resume was “I am That I am”. You are the ones talking about “perfect”)
5- We have found flaws in Omar…
6- Therefore Omar cannot exist. (But I do! Guy that did my resume simply added too much shit)

Six, in any case, only goes as far as disproving 1 and 2, at best, so we don’t know if God is perfect or perfectly good. If God is not absolute then He exists.

Evil is the total lack of good just as good is the total lack of evil. Such lack is essentially a human measure, thus finite; and it is not arrived by reason but by feeling (one feels that such moment is void of any good or of any evil).

As conceived by some, yes, but not everybody thinks of God in such a way. Hell, I say every concept of God is a non-starter.

I disagree with your conception of polytheism. In the greek pantheon you had Zeus as the most potent god and yet that did not mean that the other beings in Olympus were not treated and called “gods”- god of this, god of that, god of something else. This paternalistic view is still present in the Bible, covered only by the use of different terms. Thus you have Devil, angels, demons-- stronger than man but weaker than God. From that you can pass onto henotheism. To me theism in not the problem but monotheism. Monotheism has to deal with a multi-faceted reality with character to explain it all. Polytheism can bring (Zoroaster) twp characters to explain that multiplicity.

I think that the circumstances of people affect their conception of God. Satan was not the antagonist of God but of men…during their period of strength. In weakness and out of desperation, apologists emerge. The decline of a concept has little to do with its rationality than with the facts on the ground affecting the people who transact with these concept. As empires absorbed more and more people concepts began intermarrying, just as the people, creating a new form, not because the old concepts were inherently flawed, and recognized as such, but to accommodate the people of different backgrounds into a new whole. It is no accident that we celebrate Christmas on 25th December.

But you do understand that omnipotence does not lead to a problem of evil. The Unmovable Mover can be conceived as Omnipotent, yet indifferent to our fates, thus, no POE.

I wonder where you get the idea God is sharing his power with a son?? In the case of the NT God is still supreme overall but merely delegating power to Jesus in one sense.
I have stated, in the NT, God is not explicitly claimed as an absolutely perfect God.
However, later theologians [e.g. St. Anselm] who understood the dilemma argued the Biblical God is an ontological God, i.e. an absolutely perfect God than which no greater perfection can arise. This is to ensure the Islamic God [or other God] as claimed is not one-up on the Christian God. Ultimately all ideas of God has to be on par as an absolutely perfect God such that not one is giving away any grounds.

Note sure if you are a Christian, if you are a Christian and if you do not claim your God is an absolutely perfect God, then your god is inferior to Allah and Allah can easily command and control your God to its ass.

So the rational choice for any theists [who understand the dilemma] is to claim one’s God is an absolutely perfect God so that one’s God will not be dominated by another God who claim itself as an absolutely perfect God.

So an absolute perfect God is imperative and all theists when they are in the know will have no choice by gravitate to an absolutely perfect God.
But the catch is an absolutely perfect God is an impossibility.

I had argued the idea of God arose from a very primal psychological impulse and that God [illusory] is an impossibility in the first place.
This is why no matter how you argue for your God [based on faith and psychological] will never be a possibility, i.e. an impossibility. GIGO.

If that is the case, then The God, as defined below, must be “absolutely perfect”;
The God ≡ Who/Whatever incontestably determines All that can or cannot be concerning any situation.

And now you have stated that The God is also known as Allah and is perfect.

But how would you know whether he is perfect one way or another?

I presume ‘Omar’ is a human being.
The basic premise is humans [empirical] cannot be God [transcendent].
So your whole syllogism above is corrupted and conclusion false.

Note theists claim their God exists as real and is self-sufficient, independent and created humans.
I had argued, to claim God exists, inherently, God must be an absolutely perfect God.
An absolutely perfect God must be absolutely and perfectly good.
Since evil [natural and human-created] exists,
Therefore God is an impossibility due to the contradiction.

You insist ‘evil’ is conditioned by humans and their interpretation.
However it is the same for the idea of God which is conditioned by humans and their interpretation.

Note a supplement (i) to my arguments;

i. Theists [Humans] claim God exists as real.

  1. then God must be absolutely perfect - as argued.
  2. Thus God must be absolutely and perfectly good.
  3. Law of Non-Contradiction, God cannot be absolutely and perfectly evil.
  4. Any elements of evil proves contradiction
  5. Evil [experienced by humans] exists empirically as defined logically.
  6. God is contradictory, therefore cannot exist

The element in 5 which is experienced and concluded by humans is consistent with the human-based premise in (i).

Omnipotence do not directly lead to evil as it can lead to good as well.
Note my P1 above, ‘then God must be absolutely perfect,’ which include therein the quality of omnipotence leading to God must be omni-good thus cannot be evil in any way.
Since evil exists, therefore God is an impossibility.

Note my reply to Amininius above;

I had argued the idea of God arose from a very primal psychological impulse and that God [illusory] is an impossibility in the first place.
This is why no matter how you argue for your God [based on faith and psychological] will never be a possibility, i.e. an impossibility. GIGO.

The very idea of God existing as real is cracked and shattered by the many researches that demonstrated the idea of God also arise from mental sickness [epilepsy, schizophrenia, etc.], brain damage, drugs, hallucinogens and other psychological basis. e.g.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg[/youtube]

Now that I have proven “God is an Impossibility” it will lend more credibility to trace the idea of God to its psychological base roots.

In addition, Eastern spirituality has already understood the same existential crisis and sickness that trigger the idea of God and they approach this psychological problem based on non-theistic approaches which has been very successful and without the negative baggage of evil elements in their doctrine to inspire evil prone believers to commit terrible evils and violence.

You are confusing many things here again. We are not saying that we need or want a God or something like that. We are just saying that your premises and your conclusions are false. So we are not arguing religiosuly, but logically.

You have proven nothing.

What you are doing is nothing else than advertising destruction, thus nihilism.

Why are you not simply saying: “I do not believe in God, and if others do, then I do not care”. That would be at least an honest statement. Then - and only then - you could justifiably claim to be an atheist. An atheist is not interested in theistic issues. You are obviously more interested in theistic issues than theists. So you are either a theist who deneies cynically to be one or an anti-theists who confuses anti-theism with atheism, likely also because of cynical motives.

Let’s apply your argument to things that actually exist:

All armies that exist must be perfect, otherwise a stronger army would defeat a weaker army. Therefore, every army that exists must be absolutely powerful and cannot be defeated by any other army.

^ Make sense?

There are some regions, for instance in South Italy, Spain and Portugal, where Christians believe more in the Mother of God than in God himself.

To those henotheists, that’s the point anyway. So, in reality they are not monotheists, but henotheists, because they always believe, if they are true believers, that their God is more powerful than the God of the others, which means that they acknowledge, recognize, accept the God of the others as the God of the others (!), which would be a contradiction, if they were monotheists.

Where did I “argue for” my (?!) “God”?

Again and again: You have proven nothing. Your statements show your nihilistic attitude towards others’ values and likely and unconsciously also your own values.

Not God is an impossibility, but the "proof that God is an impossibility" is an impossibility. And this impossibility is just the reason why humans or most humans have always believed in gods. It is a success story just because of the impossibility that gods are impossibilities, regardless whether they are perfect or not, regardless wether they are absoute or not. So your kind of God is possible too.

I differentiated ‘perfection’ between the empirical and the non-empirical.
I had argued the idea of God must ultimately be absolute perfection with perfections that are relevant to its essential qualities, e.g. omnipotence, and omni-whatever.

Only God by default ultimately must be absolutely perfect, else it will be dominated by another.

Armies are empirical based.
Being empirical based and conditional, there is no way an army can claim absolute perfection which is totally unconditional.
How can we establish an definition of a perfect army? It is in terms of total number of men, weapons, power of weapons and these keep changing in accordance to conditions, thus cannot be totally unconditional.
Therefore at best every army will claim they can do the best and wish to be superior but they cannot claim absolute perfection in every which way.

I have proven by reason and default, God is an Impossibility.

I understand at present theists are believing in all sort of forms of God based on ignorance. But when they aware of the dilemma they are believing in a lesser powerful God, they will gravitate to an absolutely perfect God which no other gods can dominate it. Point is when they avoid this inevitable domination by others, they MUST end up with an absolutely perfect, which rationally is an impossibility.

I understand believing in a God even if it impossibility has benefits to theists but this is primarily psychological benefits to deal with an existential crisis.

I’ll repeat the following posted in the other thread;

The idea of God arose primarily to deal with the terrible psychological angst suffered by all humans and more so by the majority.
While there is the above main pro and other secondary benefits from theism, it is double-edged and has its terrible negatives of evils when SOME evil prone theists commit terrible evils when inspired by the evil laden words of God in some holy texts.
At present humanity already has alternative non-malignant approaches [from Eastern spiritualities] without evil laden elements in its doctrine to deal with this terrible angst.
Thus if we have foolproof non-theistic alternative why should we settle for theistic approaches that has negative side effects.

It is because of the terrible evils, terror and violence from believing in an impossible God that we must convince theists their beliefs are groundless.

Suppose you meet a theist and he insist on killing you because you are from a different religion and he believe his God [to him is real] has granted him sanction to kill. But if that theist is convinced with argument that the God he think is real is actually false and impossible, then he will have no theistic basis to kill you.
This is the advantage of why the truth ‘God is an impossibility’ is good for humanity because it will prevent all theistic based evils.

You have proven nothing other than your own inability to prove anything.

And you have been given detailed explanation as to why. You have not been able to refute anything said against your feigned proofs.

Why?

What makes omni-[whatever] “essential”? In polytheistic religions, there are many gods who don’t have all (or any) of these traits. And they are not always dominated by the most powerful god of the pantheon. True, Zeus was the most powerful of the Greek gods, and therefore in a sense “dominated” over the others, but clearly the other gods enjoyed a significant degree of freedom–enough so that cults of human beings could worship them as they would any other god. ← This also goes to show that lesser and greater gods can form alliances with each other, just as lesser and greater armies can form alliances. Furthermore, even if the most powerful god was to wipe out all lesser gods into extinction, being the “most” powerful does not have to mean “all” powerful. The one surviving god may still bear certain imperfections.

And in what way is this not so for “unempirical” gods? It’s true that in terms of abstract concepts–like being all knowing–one can imagine a sort of limitless ability–such that for anything that can be known, an omniscient god would know it–but this is partly a consequence of not knowing, and not caring about how one would know, how omniscience is possible (just as you would be free to entertain the idea of an all-powerful army if you didn’t think you had to understand what that would mean in terms of weapons, money, political support, number of soldiers, etc.–an all powerful army would just mean: capable of defeating any other army).

And besides, there’s still a difference between being capable of imagining an all knowing god and the necessity of a god being all knowing. There’s no reason to suppose that just because you can conceive a greater god, that this or that god must be that greater god.

^ Are you bringing Anselm’s argument into the picture?

Because the term ‘perfect’ is used in a variety of sense.
Achieving a perfect score of 100/100 in an objective test is empirically possible. Such an empirical perfection is different from ideal perfection, e.g. perfect circle which is still empirically related.
Perfect in relation to an ultimate God means ‘absolute’ total, unqualified, and the likes. Such an ideal and absolute perfection cannot be real [empirically and rationally].

Note I have produced the range of the meaning of ‘perfect’ in an earlier post. Check the dictionary.

I understand there are a range of gods within polytheism.
Note the point I brought up, i.e. the idea of God is inherent and has naturally evolved from animism to polytheism to monotheism and ultimately to an ontological God, i.e. an absolutely perfect God.
Those who are into polytheism are in a way ignorant and grabbed what that came and by cultural and traditions many are still stuck to it at present.
Given the rational choice, theists will rationally adopt a progressively greater God that will ultimate be an absolutely perfect God. This is why 5.4 billion theists are believing in a monotheistic God and the progress will ultimately be an absolutely perfect God.

I have stated, an absolutely perfect God is the ultimate because when cornered no theist will accept their God to be dominated by another. The theists’ natural progression to avoid one’s God being dominated will lead one to an absolutely perfect God with an optimism that such a God is real. No theists will concede to accept their God has to kiss the ass of another.

Btw, if any theist were to postulate an anthropomorhic God, which is empirically based, I agree such an empirically based God is empirically possible. But such possibility would be extremely negligible. To prove such a God, all one need to to bring the verifiable and justifiable evidence. The limitation of the empirically-based God is there will always be a greater empirical God than the one that is claimed.
So whatever empirical God a theist claim, another will claim another empirical God is greater and this culminate in an infinite regression.

To avoid an infinite regression and kissing the ass of another God, it is only logical that the smarter thinker theists had introduced an absolutely perfect God than which no other God can be greater in perfection.
Yes, I am bringing in St. Anselm’s definition of an ontological God into the picture.
There is no other way for a thinking theist to get out of the above dilemma of infinite regression and having to kiss the ass of another God than to resort to an absolute perfect God.

When a theist claims;
“my God is a Being than which no greater in perfection can exists”
it give no room for another God to dominate it nor command the lesser god to kiss his ass.
Ultimately all educated and thinking theists will end up with an absolutely perfect God [the default definition of what is a God].

But I had argued, an absolutely perfect God is an impossibility to be real, i.e. empirically + rationally real because absolute perfection [as argued] is impossible to be real.

And you still haven’t described what perfection (of any type) looks like.

How could you know?

I introduced the dictionary meaning of perfect and its range of meaning.

In addition I have introduced the following perspective of perfection which you responded as;
viewtopic.php?p=2684613#p2684613

  1. Empirically existing = observable.
  2. Empirically possible = might be observable for all we know.
  3. Empirically impossible = certainly never observable.
  4. Non-empirical and impossible = never observable and logically impossible (contradictory).

In the case of 1. Empirically existing = observable, we have example of a perfect score of 100/100 in an objective test, a so-claimed perfect woman, etc.

In the case of 2. Empirically possible = might be observable for all we know, a perfect circle as observed where measurements conform to quality of a perfect circle.

In the case of 3. Empirically impossible = certainly never observable, an ideal perfect circle which can only exist in numbers and thought but never empirically.

  1. Non-empirical and impossible = never observable and logically impossible (e.g. contradictory or rationally impossible). This is the absolutely perfect God which can never be observable empirically and logically impossible to exists as real empirically and rationally. Such a God is a logical resultant to stop an infinite regression.

I have demonstrated why the idea of God must ultimately be an absolutely perfect God and not any other lesser God to avoid being dominated and having to kiss the ass on another greater or ontological God.

I have already covered the full range/continuum of ‘what is perfect’ from the empirical [qualified] to absolutely perfect [unqualified].
What views of ‘perfect’ can you present and argue against the above?

The dictionary merely says that “perfect” means “without flaw”. That is almost tautological because now we have to ask about what “without flaw” means. Flaw refers to a relative perspective. What is a flaw to one, might be a perfection to another. So you still haven’t actually answered that question in any meaningful way (but then neither do typical dictionaries, sooo … you have to do better than they).

The rest of that post is irrelevant.

Nature’s imperfection caused this perfect beauty…flawed but perfectly beautiful.

[tab]Perfection.jpg[/tab]

The above display your lack of intellectual integrity.

Note this dictionary;
google.com/search?rlz=1C1CH … Dictionary
google.com/search?rlz=1C1CH … bs=perfect

Are you still insisting on this;
JSS: The dictionary merely says that “perfect” means “without flaw”.

I have stated my use of ‘perfect’ in this OP refer to it relevant general meanings, e.g. conforming to all required elements, free from flaw PLUS
2. absolute; complete (used for emphasis).
synonyms: absolute, complete, total, real, out-and-out, thorough, thoroughgoing, downright, utter, sheer, consummate, unmitigated, unqualified, veritable, in every respect, unalloyed;

In addition, see the meaning of ‘absolute’.
google.com/search?rlz=1C1CH … s=absolute

Absolute/absolutely perfect is really nothing more, at least to me, than a highly subjective wonderful, beautiful sense of qualia.

Objectively speaking, something which is absolute perfection is anything which normally functions well, for the most part, without SNAFU. :evilfun: