If God is so powerful, why doesn't he eliminate evil?

reply to post by SparkyP


Either there is no god.
Or if there is a god, he doesn't care - nor does he even want us to be certain of his existence.
According to the bible - god has meddled plenty of times in human affairs and thus negated the argument about "free will" being the reason for suffering.

According to the argument "there must be evil for there to be good", what then of heaven? Will there be evil there as well? Per that argument, there will HAVE to be evil in heaven or at least the knowledge of it lurking around for any good to be enjoyed.

The ONLY thing that god cares about is having himself worshiped, exalted, venerated, and praised. He wants to constantly be told how good he is, reminded that he exists, reminded that we are trash and he is supreme - and he will lay waste to anyone who gets in the way of that, or denies him that.

reply to post by sykickvision


"According to the bible - god has meddled plenty of times in human affairs and thus negated the argument about "free will" being the reason for suffering."

According to goldilocks, three bears lived in a house and ate porridge. That doesn't make it true.

First i would like to say hello to everybody here on ATS, im a long time lurke.... its been done to death .. hello....... awkward! anywho, i believe that because we are beings of free will, we are subject to evil and good. Pretty much all evil is a byproduct of our own decisions, we reap what we sow. We need to see the good and bad consequences of our actions.Imagine a world with no evil, it would be like taking an exam while already knowing the answers. Sure it may seem like an easy fix but who here wants their life planned out for them? i personally don't, i want to earn my place and by that i mean i know i will make mistakes along the way (evil ones) but hopefully i will improve gradually.

Slan agus beannacht

reply to post by keepon


Doing evil is not an aspect of free will. It is disobedience to God.

reply to post by EssenSieMich



Try looking at 'god' as the spirit of life that emanates and expresses through cycles and orders of nature.

We as conscious beings...start to label things on a spectrum of 'good and bad'. In this weighing and measuring...slowly we start to evolve as conscious beings with our own will to emanate harmony as a part of nature and a part of its cycles and orders.

Maybe try looking at this experience as 'there are no mistakes'...and that we are evolving in 'mind', as a collective whole as we weigh and measure through a spectrum we have created.

What one calls evil is likely not going to be the exact same that another calls evil. Those that hurt others...are simply sick in soul and mind. They live more for things of self and flesh instead of seeing they are of a whole and of Spirit and all things they do effects another self of them.

Its easy to think that something outside of us is to fix things that we wish were not so. But as a whole, we need to help influence each other for harmony on this world and as a one species. Our issues of what we all choose to live for are deep. Take pride for example. Im sure we can agree that pride can cause people to do harmful things to others....but when we look at a nation that has pride for being the nation that it is separate from other nations...many dont see that as a bad thing. They cant look beyond and see that a world divided, through different avenues of pride, that one group holds itself above another group, through pride....we fall as a world, as a whole.

Its complex...and we need to learn from the past. If someone kept coming along and cleaning up the spilt milk...would we learn to be more careful?>

Could you know the worth of love and goodness....without experiencing the pain of hate and harm?

both good and evil are subjective...

so what if neither exist at all?

that would answer the OP's question...

Theres no need to eliminate evil because it doesn't exist

Originally posted by Akragon
both good and evil are subjective...

so what if neither exist at all?

that would answer the OP's question...

Theres no need to eliminate evil because it doesn't exist

Here is the problem with that though.

Do we not intervene when someone is known to harm children or other people? Do we not hold a punishment for those that choose to let anger rule them and then kill another person?

Are we going to really say that we should not be trying to evolve as a 'better world' then what we are experiencing here today and have in the past?

Surely there is a reason why hate creates a ill feeling within us. Even cells in a pitri dish flee to one side of the dish when poison is placed into the dish. There does seem to be a 'natural' need to discern between what helps you and what harms you.

Originally posted by LeoVirgo

Originally posted by Akragon
both good and evil are subjective...

so what if neither exist at all?

that would answer the OP's question...

Theres no need to eliminate evil because it doesn't exist

Here is the problem with that though.

Do we not intervene when someone is known to harm children or other people? Do we not hold a punishment for those that choose to let anger rule them and then kill another person?

Are we going to really say that we should not be trying to evolve as a 'better world' then what we are experiencing here today and have in the past?

Surely there is a reason why hate creates a ill feeling within us. Even cells in a pitri dish flee to one side of the dish when poison is placed into the dish. There does seem to be a 'natural' need to discern between what helps you and what harms you.

Perhaps, but when a person harms another does it make him evil? Or is it that this person doesn't understand himself...to this person harming another might not seem to be a problem for whatever reason ie..lack of morals, good judgement, selfishness....or what have you

Good and evil are just a product of what society tells us....if society said "go ahead beat on whoever you want" this person wouldn't be evil....he would be normal.

So again good and evil are subjective

reply to post by Akragon

Perhaps, but when a person harms another does it make him evil? Or is it that this person doesn't understand himself...to this person harming another might not seem to be a problem for whatever reason ie..lack of morals, good judgement, selfishness....or what have you

Sure...a person that harms another obviously has a reason behind their actions and who is anyone to say that there reason is not justifiable. But we do have to have a spectrum for we are a many living on one world amongst eachother. We cant just let chaos rule where ever it finds itself to be fit.

We need a spectrum of 'right and wrong' to have somewhat of an order.

What keeps you from hurting someone when they make you angry? What makes us feel bad when we take something that is not ours? There are reasons that feelings arise in us when we do things that we could of done better things and I think we need to pay attention to that.

I have no problem with duality having purpose...but I do believe in standing up for the 'better choice'...choices that benefit the 'whole' instead of choices that hinder the whole.

reply to post by LeoVirgo


I agree completely, but we're talking about morals here...Not good and evil.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by LeoVirgo

 

I agree completely, but we're talking about morals here...Not good and evil.

True....and we all easily will rate other morals against our own as 'better' or 'not better'.

From the OPs standpoint about God and evil (lets say suffering, pain, hate)....all things have their purpose. Look at things from a 'whole' viewpoint instead of a fractal viewpoint.

There is a God, and he is good IMHO. I look at it like this, and this could be entirely wrong for I am not God, but this has always helped explain things for me. If I were God, and I could make anything I wanted why would I want a whole bunch of mindless robots to serve me? I wouldn't, and that's why I would incorperate free will amongst my people. They would have the option to serve me, and be with me. So by the time you get up to heaven your not just a mindless robot he could have made at the blink of an eye, but somewhat of an equal, or atleast a more respectable robot.

We humans have chosen to learn and experiance the difference between good, evil and death.

We can choose to be good at any time. But first we have to know what being good is. Being good would be the same as knowing the moral code.

Goodness is unity, evil is duality. Beyond our evil, divided world lies God, the perfect unity.
God is the ultimate reconciliation, as implied by several other posters already.

reply to post by EssenSieMich


You speak about God without having belief. Why didn't you continue living your life?
If you would have been humble..

Originally posted by keepon
It's not God that's the problem. It's us. He gave us free will.

i agree

Originally posted by EssenSieMich
If he really does exist, why doesn't God just eliminate the adversary and be done with it? I would if I were God. If I had all of these children, and I were God, I wouldn't allow something that was pure evil to mess with them. Why does God?

Isaiah 45:7

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.


So you see, God can't eliminate the evil/adversary, it would be suicide

It's a love God issue, then evil is given no might. Do you read me?

Free will?. You guys are funny. Here is another question instead of an answer...........
Why did God have to do a commando raid on his own creation? Sending your 'only begotten' seems like a pretty extreme measure If one is trying to make a correction to ones own creation.